


A Dance of Life and Death

by DaughterOfElmStreet



Category: Mage: The Ascension, Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game), World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Adventure & Romance, Canon Divergence/Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death (sorta), Coming of Age, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/M, First Meetings, Friends to Lovers, Game of Thrones References, Getting to Know Each Other, Grief/Mourning, Life is Strange (Season 1 and Before the Storm) References, Mage-Vampire Relationship, Mixing of V20 and V5, Moving On, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Post-Awakening, References to Video Games, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts/References to Past Suicides, Suicide Survivors, Vampiric Horror/Drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:00:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21855670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfElmStreet/pseuds/DaughterOfElmStreet
Summary: FORMERLY KNOWN AS "THE GANGREL AND THE RUNAWAY". GIANT WOD PROJECT WITH A PROLOGUE, SIX ACTS, AND AN EPILOGUE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION.In which three souls are entwined in a dance of fantastic tragedies and frightening adventures. Darkness and light...love and hatred...alive and dead. Opposites attract. Symbiosis happens. And the World of Darkness is never the same again...
Relationships: Beckett/Original Female Character(s), Beckett/Original Female Mage Character(s)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 61





	1. Prologue: Caine's Question

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhh here I go trying to write a fic again. I’ve put a lot of time and research into this one so hopefully you guys will enjoy it! 
> 
> Some things to note before you read:
> 
> \- This contains an OC (original character) as one of the protagonists/POVs. If you’re not into that being a major part of a story well this may not be the fic for you. 
> 
> \- White Wolf’s ‘World of Darkness’ has a gigantic library of lore, history, and characters which despite my desires to the contrary, I do not have the ability to sit and read up on endlessly. If you would like to let me know about something which you feel is critical to character or sect’s motivations that I seem to have left out just let me know in the comments! I’m always eager to learn more!
> 
> \- As World of Darkness is a series of role-playing games at its heart, some of the finer details of the physical, social, and mechanical elements of this fantastic world are left up to the storyteller or players to decide how it all ultimately works. How I write WoD may differ from how you imagine, play, or write it, but hey that’s what makes it so cool! Just something to keep in mind as you read.
> 
> \- This story contains some heavy topics such as depression and suicide. I will post another warning before any chapter that contains these themes in the notes. Please, please stop reading at any point if these topics are triggering to you. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 to help those who feel overwhelmed in any way. Please visit their website at suicidepreventionlifeline.org or call the number 1-800-273-8255 if you or someone you know needs help. Stay safe and know you are loved!
> 
> Okay, let’s do this.

_Caine looked up from his slain brethren, anguished and blood-soaked. “Why must I survive this?” he asked miserably._

_“Because one must live who remembers these things as they happened,” the answer was. “For when the stars fall, the darkness has no chains. Life and death must dance anew to stop its advance...lest we all fade before the great flood…"_

-Excerpt from _Why Abel was Slain: The Unfragmented True History of The World of Darkness and of Life_ , chapter XIII "The Final Blow", by Cuthbert Beckett, and all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added to story on January 26th, 2021.


	2. Table of Contents

This story will be divided into eight parts: a prologue, six acts, and an epilogue. I will reveal parts of the story over time, as it is written. Currently, here is the story so far:

Prologue: Caine's Question.

Act 1: The Gangrel and The Runaway.

  * Chapter 1: Through the Broken Glass, and What Beckett Found There.
  * Chapter 2: Awake.
  * Chapter 3: New Year's With a Stranger.
  * Chapter 4: The Dance Begins.
  * Chapter 5: ???




	3. Act 1 - The Gangrel And The Runaway

_The World of Darkness is changing, and things are getting stranger by the night. But nothing is quite as strange as the relationship forming between a snarky globetrotting Gangrel and a newly Awakened mage runaway. Though they may not know it, many eyes fall on them as they travel across the nights together. The gears of fate are turning, as are two hearts toward one another._

List of Characters (Ongoing as the story is written; often subject to change):

  * Cuthbert Beckett, better known simply as 'Beckett'. A 7th generation vampire of the clan Gangrel. A scholar of various histories related and unrelated to vampire existence with a shadowy recent past. A protagonist.
  * Thora Autumn Mitchell, better known as 'Thora Autumn'. An 18-year old runaway who has recently Awakened. A rough-around-the-edges-with-a-heart-of-gold sort of girl with a tremendous amount of magickal potential. A protagonist.
  * An Unknown Individual, their real name unknown. Race/species currently unknown. Sees visions of Thora and Beckett together and is trying to find them, at any cost. Unknown character status.
  * Enola Spier, better known as 'Nola'. A 43-year-old Hollow One mage from the Seattle area. A "do-gooder", a professional therapist, and old friend of Beckett's. She has agreed to take in Thora.
  * Lady Aisling Sturbridge, also known as the 'High Regent'. A 10th generation vampire of the clan Tremere. A scholar of various magics related and unrelated to vitae (blood) and Beckett's cirremt employer. Her assignment inadvertently led to Beckett and Thora meeting.
  * Katrina Adams-Moore, better known simply as 'Kat'. A mortal teenage girl, recently deceased. Warm, loving, fond of Netflix. A former friend and lover of Thora's. She is often on her mind.
  * Keller Southhall, also known simply as 'Kell'. A mortal teenage boy, recently deceased. Deep thinking, intelligent, fond of hiking. A former friend and lover of Thora's. He is often on her mind.
  * Lucita de Aragon. A 6th generation vampire of clan Lasombra. Former friend, colleague, companion, and casual lover of Beckett's. Met her Final Death in 2015 under unknown circumstances, though Beckett was evidently with her when it occured. Beckett tries not to think of her most nights.
  * Anatole, also known as 'The Prophet of Gehenna'. A 6th generation vampire of clan Malkavian. Former friend, colleague, mentor, and lover of Beckett's. Met his Final Death in 2012; as an apparnet suicide. Beckett misses him dearly.




	4. Through the Broken Glass, and What Beckett Found There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our story begins one snowy December night...

> _“Child of the pure unclouded brow_
> 
> _And dreaming eyes of wonder!_
> 
> _Though time be fleet, and I and thou_
> 
> _Are half a life asunder,_
> 
> _Thy loving smile will surely hail_
> 
> _The love-gift of a fairy-tale.”_
> 
> \- From _Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There_ by Lewis Carrol. 

**On the Roof of Berkhamsted Public Library - Berkhamsted, Massachusetts USA - December 30th, 2018, about 10:45 pm local time:**

_“To whom it may concern:_

_You don’t know me and I don’t know you._

_Despite this, I know that certain individuals here tonight intend to cause you harm. And I don’t believe your actions here justify what they have planned._

_If my knowledge of your activities is worrying, well all I can say is that I’m sincerely sorry for exhibiting such stalkerish behavior. I guess this act is my repentance of sorts._

_Anyway, I know you were conducting some kind of research here, and as tonight’s events will interrupt that, here are (hopefully) all the materials you have been using during your visits here so you have no reason to continue past this point._

_I have taken measures to throw the would-be assailants for a loop so you will not be discovered._

_If I’m caught, well I kinda deserve it. So I’ll try not to get caught._

_Good luck with whatever you’re doing._

_A friend.”_

Beckett was rereading the letter for the third time when the ruckus started. 

The shattering of glass, gunshots, and indistinct shouts and curses broke the fairly tranquil nighttime ambiance of wind and the distant hum of highways. The Noddist let out a small growl of frustration at the interruption, but this old rooftop was slick with snow and ice. Not the most ideal location for a brawl if it came to that. He grabbed the bound pile of documents that were sitting in a cardboard box just below where the letter had been waiting for him and shoved them all into his bag with haste.

No explosion or ominous ticking followed, so unlike other mysterious boxes the vampire scholar had worked with, this one had not been a bomb in disguise. 

_Silver linings,_ he thought to himself. Apparently, his new “friend” had not kept the mysterious threat at bay, but despite the hassle this all would undoubtedly bring with it, Beckett was glad to have some form of excitement at last. The last two weeks had been painfully dull while cross-referencing his materials with public records and maps at this old library. 

But such was the nature of his chosen pursuits in unlife. There was no sense in complaining about it.

He was fastening his worn leather bag back tightly with the documents now inside when the rumbling began. Like an earthquake striking, the old building of brick seemed to tremble like a leaf clinging to a branch. Beckett shook off the initial shock and moved quickly. He called upon his vitae and became a bat as he bolted over the edge of the roof. 

As he was gaining his bearings fluttering close to the side of the building, a ghastly wail and a flash of light emanated from the darkened library, shattering any glass that had so far escaped the fray. He glided blinded for a moment and then found himself clinging to an old rusted pipe. As the building shook, there was a symphony of the crashing bookcases, the shouting of men that faded into garbled screams, two more gunshots from a rifle, and that high pitched shriek that cracked like lightning in the sky above all the rest. As the storm of sounds raged around him, Beckett suddenly remembered a story about a banshee that he heard as a mortal child.

His mother, another rare thought these nights, had told the tale to him before bed to keep him from sneaking off to explore the woods that surrounded their village in the night. 

_“Her ugly ghastliness will curse thine eyes, and her scream will crumble yer soul to dust!”_ she had said centuries ago.

And the story had succeeded in keeping him from running off into the night, for a time anyway. Until of course he had decided that banshees were nonsense. 

All was silent suddenly. No more screams, no more shaking, no more crashes or curses. 

Just silence.

Beckett breathed in the night air through his small bat nostrils, as his clan’s legacy let him survey the area with keen animal senses even from a hiding place. The Beast within him growled with urgency for action instead of such cautiousness, but he forced it down like a bitter pill, as he so often had to. He tasted three distinct things in the chilly air: the sweet tang of the blood of kine, the strong sourness of terror, and the sizzling of a great power vibrating through every inch of the whole building.

He’d find no answers clinging to the old pipe, so going against the warning his new 'friend' had left him, he took off into the air again silently and swooped down through a broken out windows of the third floor. 

Nothing could have prepared the Gangrel for what he saw beyond the shattering window pane.

Blood. It was sprayed all about like a Rorschach test from hell. 

Bodies. They were flung around like an unruly child’s toys.

And that radiating aura of energy. It crackled like fire against all the vampire’s senses. 

Beckett returned to his humanoid form and took in the scene.

There were five dead kine in the room. Two with cracked spines half-buried in fallen books, one with bullet holes in their chest gushing out onto the gray-white carpet, one with a rather large sword stuck through their skull via the left eye-socket, and one hanging from the ceiling impaled upside down to an old bronze chandelier that rained blood down in an oddly beautiful way. All the newly dead were dressed in leather and body armor with no symbols on any of their clothes, save for two who wore gold crosses around their throats. They all had fine curved swords with the engraved trademark of a Portuguese swordsmith as well as high caliber firearms and an assortment of other weapons. 

_Second Inquisition hunters,_ he deduced quickly. _But what was their prey? It wasn’t me..._

A pace up and down the room later, having eyeballed the distance which the corpses had been tossed, Beckett concluded that some great exerted energy had killed these people. Its epicenter was from the center of the room right under the chandelier, where the first victim of the fray hung. The one hanging up to dry had been dead at least two minutes longer than the others, as his body was giving off slightly less of the lingering heat from life. The Gangrel knelt down unto the floor, pressing a hand lightly against the blood-soaked carpet and looking closer at the surrounding area.

_The others must have rushed in when he met his end, then they surrounded the killer and they panicked at being cornered._

He noticed a small curved upheaval in the carpet, as though someone had been lying there not too long ago. Right where the mayhem had begun. _They must have left some sort of calling card...ah._

Just as he was picking out a long blond hair from the corner of an upturned chair leg to the side of the center of the scene, his ears pricked at the sound of a door slamming shut elsewhere in the building.

In a flash he tucked the hair into his coat pocket and hurried along towards the sound, calling upon his disciplines once again. 

Whoever was responsible for this mess was still here. And they weren’t leaving until Beckett got some answers. 

***

The girl collapsed against the eggshell-colored wall in the lobby after bolting down three flights of stairs. 

Pain seared in her head like an egg frying on hot pavement. Her vision was blurring as she looked down at her pale shaky hands stained with dark crimson. The loose braid her hair had been wrapped in had mostly come undone in the chaos, so it spiraled about her head and down her back like dark golden cobwebs. Her lips quivered uncontrollably, tears rolled down her cheeks, and she was fairly certain she had pissed in her pants a little somewhere along the way.

Sweat poured from every inch of her skin, mixing obscenely with the blood that also coated her. 

Blood of those people. Those people who were dead upstairs. Dead because of her. She had killed them. But they had tried to kill her though, so it was self-defense, right?

Right.

She had to believe that. 

She had to or the horror of what she had done would swallow her whole. Or maybe it already had... 

The pain in her head suddenly throbbed harder as she tried to stand, like a second heart beating in her skull instead of her chest. What the fuck was happening to her? 

She staggered across the lobby towards an old roll-top desk the staff kept out as a novelty where she'd hidden her backpack before all of this started. It contained everything she owned and was beginning to look pretty worn down, but she had better things to worry about right now. She fumbled to find and swallow two ibuprofen tablets she had stowed away in a zippered compartment. Somehow her mouth made enough saliva to force them down without a beverage for assistance. 

The pain still drove on but maybe it would dull shortly now.

As the girl sat on the floor she turned her thoughts to getting away from here. Undoubtedly the spectacle upstairs had been noticed by some of the townspeople, and unless they were truly careless suburbanites, they had probably called the police already and said something was going on at the old library. And as she didn’t even have an explanation for herself as to what the hell had happened up there, telling any authorities about it would be a fiasco at best.

Berkhamsted had only ever meant to be a stop on her great journey to find her purpose in life, or whatever such bullshit she’d told herself when she’d run away from home. A place to relive a precious memory that seemed a thousand years away before moving forward. She ended up staying here as long as she had because it was easy to hide from the staff and they left the heat running all night. Such things became great blessings as a newly homeless person.

Then there was the stranger, the reason she’d stayed even longer still. And the reason she now was responsible for five counts of manslaughter.

 _Do not place blame on the victim of your reckless fantasies,_ hissed a husky voice in her head above the rhythmic thumping of pain. _**You** put **him** in danger, remember? _

It was the same voice she’d been hearing the last 48 hours since those people had shown up and made their plans to hunt the stranger down. The one that had egged her on through this descent into madness and violence, and seemed to be sticking around for the aftershow now.

Just her fucking luck.

But the voice was right. She _had_ put him in danger. She had used him as a pawn in her depressed mental games while squatting illegally and could have gotten him killed or worse by those maniacs in leather. Shame dropped like a lead weight in her stomach. Even now in the bag beside was a notebook filled with shitty sketches and bits of poems she’d made while spying on him in the records room the past few weeks. Like a lovesick middle schooler.

Fantasizing about his origin and purpose for sneaking into the library every night had become a source of entertainment for her in this sluggish, self-pitying hole she’d dug herself. It had seemed harmless enough...until the leather-clad secret police or whatever they were had shown up. They had been trying to catch the stranger for a long time, claiming he was an agent of Satan and it was their duty to destroy him before he discovered how to open the gates of hell or some such rantings. Though there was an obvious issue with him breaking into the building every night, he hadn’t done anything but read old documents and books and take notes. She was no member of Congress, but she was pretty sure that was not a crime punishable by death. 

And last she checked, the state authorities for Massachusetts were _not_ called The Society of Leopold.

Another twinge of agony wracked her head and shot down her spine, breaking her out of her reflective stupor. She had to clasp a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out loud. As more tears rolled down her face, the voice spoke again:

 _Save your reflections for your next encounter with a mirror,_ it said. _Pain waits for no one so do not wait for the pain to come or to go. Get up. Get moving._

It occurred to her that she knew the voice from somewhere, but couldn’t think of who or what it was at the moment. But there was no time to wonder about that. Her body was forcing itself up before she was even consciously aware of it and she heaved her backpack onto one shoulder. She made her way to a side entrance that the employees used and after quickly retrieving a spare key card kept in a potted plant nearby, she swung open the heavy metal door and trudged out into the chilly night.

The door slammed behind her, seeming to trigger another wave of pain. She staggered again before coming to a stop. This time she noticed blood dripping down onto the lightly frosted earth. Her nose was bleeding.

“Now we’re doing Max Caulfield shit, great,” she muttered to herself as her head spun. Her backpack dropped from her shoulder and she nearly fell over as she cupped her forehead to try and relieve the pressure building.

The earth seemed to sway under her feet as her vision blurred red against the white ground. Red like the blood she had spilled upstairs. Red like the stream coming from her nostrils now. She shut her eyes to try and block it out but it persisted against the darkness of her eyelids.

Maybe this was payment for the lives she had taken. Like on Game of Thrones, only death can pay for life.

Was she dying?

If she had killed to save her own and the stranger’s, would she still have to give up even more than she already had? Her heart trembled with memories of a life she’d led just a few short months ago. So much gone, so fast. And yet the world kept turning while she had been frozen stiff. Unwilling to let go of what could not be returned to her.

Maybe that’s why she had mentally built such a rapport with the stranger. Or at least imagined she had.

He seemed to exist in his own world, going against the ebb and flow of the everyday. Coming and going opposite of the sun. Breaking and entering without a sound like a shadow on the wall. Searching for something others didn’t know or care about. 

He was the kind of person she’d always imagined she’d grow up to be. But in the end, she had just ended up a teenage burnout. No friends, dropped out of school, and now homeless.

Was she even worth putting a name to her face anymore? She could hardly remember it at this moment. She was just a runaway searching for some magical sign that would never appear...

 _How can you see a sign if your eyes are never open?_ the voice asked. _Open your eyes, Thora Autumn. See what you can see._

Thora opened her eyes and found herself facing the library again. There she saw a dark shape step out from the shadow of the building. 

It had black fur edged with white. 

Pointed ears on an angular head. 

Huge paws that matched its unnaturally large size.

And its eyes…red as the blood coming down her face and spilled on the third floor. 

The wolf stared at her, taking a few steps forward gradually as though waiting to see how she would react. It gave off an odd sensation like a net being cast out over her, trying to reel her in closer to appraise her. She didn’t take the bait though as remained firmly where she stood, still locking eyes with the beast as a gust of wind ruffled the trees overhead and showered her with snow and ice from their bowers. After what could have been hours, the animal gave up the tactic and padded towards her. 

As the wolf got closer, a blur formed around it more with each step. Four legs became two, fur became a long dusty coat, and the face changed into something much more human by the time the creature, now a man, stood just in front of her. She recognized him before then though. She knew by the only thing that remained unchanged; those eyes. 

And at that moment Thora saw a thousand places all at once with those eyes looking back at her. 

Over great cities with lights blazing in the night. 

In misty forests with trees that reached high all around. 

Against tall mountains that stretched for miles in all directions. 

Surrounded by different crowds of people; fighting, mingling, dancing, flailing or staring at them both. 

Above the clouds looking down at the ocean and shore against the blue glow of night. 

Reflecting the flicker of flames, some small and gentle and others towering and wild. 

She heard a thousand whispers, screams, roars, cries, and laughs from all these places. But those eyes were still against her in all of them. They danced with a thousand emotions to match each backdrop but always remained with her. A constant in an ever-changing storm of sights and sounds. 

The vision filled her with a sense of happiness she had not felt in nearly a year and a peaceful euphoria she had never imagined possible. 

Perhaps this was the end of this life, here with the stranger she had put in danger, now a danger to her. The Society of Leopold members _had_ told her that he was dangerous and could only be trusted to bring about her end. Perhaps they had been right.

But she did not care. 

All she knew was that she never wanted to leave this blissful moment. This moment of staring at the unknown of the future, the immeasurable possibility of what could come next. And she knew that whatever happened next, he would be with her through it all. She wanted to thank him for it but words were lost to her now.

The pale man’s mouth moved with a question she never heard, for her ears were still full of the white noise from her vision. Her legs began to fail her as well, along with her sight as the pain in her head at last dulled and unconsciousness swallowed her. 

Thora managed to smile weakly at the stranger before everything went black. 

***

The girl seemed entranced, but not in the way mortals usually were when Beckett employed presence and auspex to make them more cooperative for his needs. 

She merely stared blankly at him, half in shock perhaps, while snow and ice form an overhanging branch sprinkling her messy blonde hair in an eerie, mystical way. Blood streamed from her nostrils and down her chapped lips. Her jeans and sweater were splashed and stained a darker hue undoubtedly from dispatching the hunters upstairs judging by the scent.

The sight was almost as spellbinding to Beckett as what he intended to do to her. 

Was this girl truly the source of the raw power that had slain five trained hunters? He could tell by her scent that this was the same individual as his 'friend' who had left him the letter and research materials on the roof, but was she the same being as that shrieking killer?

She didn’t seem to be in a hurry to tell him anything, as she continued to stare at him, pausing only to blink occasionally. Frustrated at her lack of responsiveness and the attempt to turn the tables, he changed into his true form and approached her. 

His footsteps faltered slightly when he met her eyes directly, however. 

They were as icy blue as the seas of the far north and glistened with tears and some sort of emotion that he had not been expecting to see: tranquility. Any other kine would have at least been tensed for some sort of fight if a wolf had just suddenly approached them. 

Not this one though. 

No, she seemed more at peace now than she had been stumbling across the lot wincing in pain. Her eyes studied him with a curious, dreamy look while her nose still streamed hot blood, the smell of which made his Beast lick its lips and growl with a longing to drain her as payment for causing such a disruption tonight. He pushed it away, as he’d get no answers from the girl if her throat was torn out.

“Who are you?” he asked simply. 

In response, the girl’s bloody lips curled into a smile as her blue eyes rolled back in her head and she began to fall to the ground. Beckett caught her, her head landing against his chest and smearing blood on his faded white shirt as she went completely limp. 

“Not the answer I was looking for,” he grumbled to himself. 

To make matters worse, he could now hear emergency sirens approaching. Apparently, some of the locals had called the authorities after the earth-shaking incident upstairs. As far as they knew an explosion had happened in their humdrum little library.

 _And they can't put their dear bingo night venue at risk, can they?_ The Noddist thought sourly as he growled at the still distant red and blue flashing lights.

Now he was going to have to make a rushed, foolhardy decision. He did have all the things he needed to finish up his research concerning the region, thanks to this girl's 'stalkerish' behavior. Had it just been him, he would shift onto all fours and disappear into the night without a care. But there were five dead bodies and this unconscious girl to consider here.

The girl against him was out cold and wouldn’t wake for several hours, not a luxury he could afford at this moment. The SI would cover up the deaths of their members, undoubtedly. And if they didn’t the nearest Camarilla sect would.

As for the girl, he had three options immediately available. 

He could lay her against the tree and let her be found by the human authorities. She would undoubtedly be taken in by the Camarilla or the SI for questioning and most likely be put to death after. Best case scenario she would become a ghoul for a council member feeling in a generous mood. Though she had caused him trouble, Beckett felt it was an unjust punishment for her crimes. 

He could snap her neck just as easily as lay her down on the earth. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about any of it. She would just be another body on the scene and be covered up with the others by whichever party, Kindred or kine, got to the morgue first. Beckett couldn’t help but feel like it would be as sinful as leaving her to the others; to create another unsolved mystery in his wake while he strove to uncover others in his travels.

Or he could…

The sirens were reaching a deafening volume. This place would be swarming with kine in about two minutes and more would be called in. He had to choose, now.

The Gangrel briefly thought back to her letter. It had been a short, honest, and oddly compassionate little note. She had spied on him, yes. Brought him to the attention of hunters, yes. But she had also shown remorse for these transgressions and attempted in her own foolish way to right her wrongs. And evidently unleashed something within herself in the process.

Something which Beckett could not deny he was quite curious about.

 _And it is your fault,_ hissed what remained of his human conscience within his head. _You were careless in your roaming through this area. She is an innocent caught in the web of danger you weave around yourself!_

 _She is merely a mortal, not a childe of any bloodline,_ countered the Beast. _If she is caught in our web, let us feed!_

Somewhere in between the warring sides of his dual nature, Beckett made his choice. 

He put her ragged backpack onto his shoulders and picked the girl up fully, her head resting in the curve of his elbow. She was at least a foot shorter than him so she wasn’t hard to lift. The lights got closer, and without looking back the vampire dashed into the forest.

Though many who he would have asked for advice if he’d had the chance would have advised against it, Beckett disappeared into the night with his new 'friend' limp in his arms.

***

**Somewhere Else -** **At The Same Time as The Incident at the Berkhamsted Public Library:**

The fit took them suddenly. 

There was a pounding in their head, then a shiver down their spine, then a warmth that spread throughout their veins like the embrace of a summer gale.

It made them feel alert yet lightheaded, confused yet calm, weak yet empowered. The euphoric, frightening rush of sensations was the most intense they had ever felt. 

And they had known many in their years.

Their vision blurred from darkness to redness, to dozens of different locations: city lights, towering foliage, jagged mountains, noisy crowds, rolling waves, blazing fires. All of them felt so real and yet intangible all once. And in the center of it all was a girl with dark golden hair, nose bleeding and snow falling onto her like a shower of stardust blessing her with ice. She opened her eyes and they were a hue to match. 

The shifting locations lasted a few moments more before it settled on the image of the girl in the snow. She smiled, perhaps at them, then began to fall. Though they reached their hands out to catch the ethereal maiden, they were replaced by a tall figure in a dusty brown trench coat. 

They tried to shout in fury within their trance when they recognized the face of the one who had caught the girl. 

_Beckett!_

A familiar, sweet, but terrified voice called out their name. And in a moment they were once again in the room where they had stood before the fit had begun. Only now they lied on the floor with Jazmine, a young creature of interest to them, hovering over them and gripping their shoulders with tears in her mismatched eyes. 

“Are you alright?” she asked anxiously, voice trembling. “You - you fell and started to thrash around…I thought you were dying!”

“Shh now, it is passed, my daughter.” they soothed the girl of eleven years while they sat up from the cold stone floor. They allowed Jazmine to wrap her bronze-colored arms around them in an embrace as she let out a small sob against their chest.

As they ran their fingers through the girl’s curly hair, a drop of blood fell onto their thumb. They reached up to find that they had acquired a nosebleed during the fit, very much like the girl they had seen. They had not had such a vision in many years but knew that it was too powerful to ignore. It had to be investigated at once. 

“Who is Beckett?” Jazmine asked as they both rose from the floor. “That name was the only thing you said while-”

“No one you need know of,” they explained tersely. “Go to bed, now.” 

The girl obediently nodded, kissed their cheek with the lovingness that only a child could produce, and left them alone with their racing thoughts. 

They set about sketching on some paper the girl they had seen, adding as much detail as they could conjure from their still aching mind. Her long hair of dark gold, her eyes of ice...even imagining it again gave them chills. Though they had seen it in a vision, they knew that she was real with no other evidence. They could feel it, and they had never been wrong on such matters.

After that, they began making contact with various individuals who may be of use in finding her out in the vast world. The only clue they had, though they loathed to admit it, was that she was with the Gangrel wanderer Beckett or would be soon. 

_Find the dog, then let him track the prey,_ they thought to themselves as they drummed their fingers restlessly against the table.

_He may lead me to her, but he will not have her. I will not let him claim what I have waited all these years to find!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wew! The first one is done! Just however many more to go (and hopefully they'll all be added within a timely manner after the previous chapter)!
> 
> Please let me know what you guys thought, I live for feedback! Writing Beckett was the hardest by far because I want to do him justice and not accidentally make him a watered-down version of himself or something. Hopefully, he came out alright in the end. But let me know if you can think of some ways to improve his character if you feel so moved!
> 
> A quick note: I will not be revealing who our mysterious third POV is during this story, but rather in a sequel I have in mind should all of this go well. Feel free to try to guess who they are in the meantime! I'm giving no hints and no matter who you guess I will not deny or verify your claim :D
> 
> See you next chapter!


	5. Awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Beckett finds shelter for the day and Thora contemplates her choices up till now...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Originally posted March 10th, 2020. Updated and slightly rewritten on March 15th, 2020.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left kudos and such encouraging comments on the first chapter! It blew me away to see so much interest in this story after just a few short paragraphs, thank you all! 
> 
> Unfortunately, this chapter was delayed for many reasons, one of which was my entire household getting the flu back to back from one another. That combined with writer's block and me being dissatisfied with many, many drafts of this first encounter between our titular Gangrel and Runaway, it took far longer than I anticipated to get this to a place where I felt comfortable sharing it. Thora's section is still a bit rough and I may continue to tweak it slightly over the coming days but the core of it is complete. I didn't wanna make you guys wait any longer.
> 
> For better or for worse, here it is at long last. Enjoy!
> 
> *THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MENTIONS OF SUICIDE. READER DISCRETION ADVISED. PLEASE REFER TO THE THE FIRST CHAPTER FOR ASSISTANCE INFORMATION SHOULD YOU FEEL TRIGGERED BY THE CONTENT OF THIS FIC. STAY SAFE AND KNOW YOU ARE LOVED*
> 
> PS. (POSSIBLE SPOILERS READ BELOW AT YOUR OWN RISK):
> 
> I changed when Anatole died. In this 'verse he took his own life in December of 2012 from paranoia about the world ending, not in 1999 like it (sorta?) officially is. But then he's alive in Beckett's Jyhad Diary which takes place from like 2002 to 2005 sooooooooo...not sure if he's dead or not in V20 or V5 really. Regardless, for the purposes of this fic, he died in 2012 so let's just leave it at that.

> _Strangely not inside - strangely not outside._
> 
> _Drowning in the middle of an eerie transition._
> 
> _And I don't know your name._
> 
> \- From _The Rapture_ by Siouxsie and the Banshees

**Headed for the Quabbin Reservoir - Central Massachusetts, USA - December 31st, 2018, about 1:00 am local time:**

To say it had been a test of patience moving an incapacitated girl across the state of Massachusetts without attracting attention from Kindred or kine would be the understatement of Beckett’s unlife. 

The scholar supposed it was a good sign that even the dregs of mortal society had shown a hint of suspicion at an older man carrying an unconscious, bloodstained girl through alleyways and under bridges. 

But for his purposes, he had relied on these junkies and homeless persons he had briefly crossed paths with to embrace the bystander effect of modern living and turn the other cheek. 

And they all had, thankfully. 

Slight employment of domination was all that had been needed to keep away the prying eyes of a small band of caitiff who had been sniffing about a trainyard. They were curious about Beckett’s presence but quickly fled with their tails between their legs at just a taste of his abilities.

All and all, he had not encountered _that many_ issues. But all the extra vigilance and several of the painfully slower alternative routes the Gangrel had been forced to take were nearly maddening. 

Especially with his “friend” still blissfully unconscious slung over his shoulder.

She was quiet at the very least. No sudden disoriented mewling or drooling occurred, an improvement over even other Kindred he had been forced to transport this way in his time.

Despite her incapacitation making things more bearable in many respects of the journey, it felt unnatural in a way. She remained limp and still, even when being hoisted onto the whistling freight train they were on now. Only the rise and fall of her abdomen gave any true indication that she was even alive.

Deep exhausted or shock was the practical explanation for it, but Beckett could feel in the air around her that there was something more, something deeper beneath the girl’s beraggled surface. 

A flicker of that same energy that had engulfed the library just hours before still radiated off her as the curl of the crescent moon shown on her bloodstained face through the open freight car door. 

The vampire sat across from her in silence, hoping that she would awaken before they arrived at their destination, which he did not particularly want to stop at unless he had no other choice. 

He briefly considered going through her backpack which was sitting beside him to at least piece together a rough portrait of who she was while he waited, but he resisted the temptation.

Kindred had looser morals in general, but Beckett made it a point not to invade the privacy of others unless it was absolutely necessary. And in this case, it was not...yet.

But the girl remained as she had been for an hour as the train sped through the night.

A worried frown began to grow on Beckett’s face as the backlash he had known he would experience for having brought her along struck him. The pragmatic part of his mind screamed:

 _You_ **_do not_ ** _have time for this! Yo_ _u’re trying to prove yourself useful to your allies. Dallying is not the way to get on any Kindred’s good side, you know that! There are_ **_fledglings_ ** _out in the night that wouldn’t have done something this foolish!_

Fool's errands and private tangents of inquiry were supposed to be off the table for good, and yet again, the Gangrel had broken his own vow to himself. 

This was becoming a troublesome pattern in his unlife. 

But he stubbornly shoved those screeching worries back with the rationale that he would be able to complete his work quickly and report back to his current business partner in a timely fashion. He did have everything he needed, ironically, thanks to this young kine. This was merely a small...detour from his current mission.

She would most likely awaken soon and then he could make a clearer decision on what course of action to take next. Perhaps even before the train reached the area where they’d have to disembark so he could skip the rest of the detour altogether. 

Unfortunately for the Noddist, another hour passed without any change in the girl’s state of consciousness. Beckett still kept up his waiting game, though. As his patience grew thinner, he began to try and prod her mind into wakefulness via his disciplines. He had no success, much to the displeasure of the Beast, who despised having to burn blood on mortals. He drummed his claw-nails nervously on his knee, trying to stay calm as a third hour passed and she was still unconscious.

“Oh fuck me,” Beckett snarled to himself when they were only about five miles away from the exit. The reality that this was, in fact, a very, very fucking foolish thing to have done sunk into his atrophied stomach. 

What the hell was he going to do with her, even if he did get to hear whatever interesting story she may have to tell? 

He _did not_ want another ghoul, he’d barely wanted the first and only one he had ever made. Would he take her back to where ever she came from; like some sort of undead rescuer service for stray kine youths lost out in the night? Why didn’t he just kill her back in Berkhamsted? Or left her for the mortal authorities? He could have just taken her damn bag to try and find out her motives instead of carrying her around like a ragdoll through the night like a fool.

 _Anatole would be laughing at me right now…_ he suddenly thought sadly. _Say something to piss me off and then try his damndest to help me. Though I’d be the ass-end of every joke he made for the next year as payment._

This entire situation reminded him of the raving blonde prophet somehow. The Malkavian had been one of the closest things to kin Becket had ever had since his Embrace, and though six years had passed since his Final Death, it still hurt to think about how Beckett would never see his amused smirk through his messy hair or hear one of his ramblings that was somehow the most sensible thing any Kindred had ever said to him. 

As he stood on the train, Beckett recalled a memory especially poignant of his fallen Malkavian brethren. They had been on a train similar to this, though in far more comfortable arrangements, and it was just before news of the Conclave of Prague where the heart of the Camarilla had basically been destroyed had reached them both. Anatole's normally bright blue eyes had darkened greatly when he had pulled the Gangrel's face up by his chin from the book he had been reading and whispered gravely:

 _“Something is changing, Beckett. And it is not a positive change,”_ his friend had told him in a knowing, forlorn voice. _“I fear it more than I have feared any other that has come in centuries past. It is reverberating through the entirety of the earth like some sickening battle cry! For what it rallies I do not know. Nor am I sure I want to know.”_

And since that day and with each passing year, Anatole’s words rang more and more true. The last decade had been a true test of Beckett’s coping skills, for he had lost far, far more than he had gained. Lost allies, friends...perhaps even part of his own resolve to keep moving forward.

This mission, a secret research project for his closest Tremere ally, Aisling Sturbridge, was meant to be the beginning of his return to the field so to speak. Beckett had made himself scarce for...personal reasons...the last few years and needed to re-establish connections if he wanted to get any leads for his own studies. If he succeeded, he would prove himself still capable of carrying out an investigation with at least moderate competence and be owed a favor from Aisling in return. 

He was frankly lucky she still trusted him enough to do this for her. 

Rumors had swirled during his absence that he had fallen into torpor after causing an industrial explosion trying to get his hands on an artifact, been captured and converted by the Baali, or even met Final Death at the end of Fatima al-Faquadi’s blade. 

A vampire with so many possible explanations for his disappearance could be more of a liability than an asset. Beckett had to prove his usefulness.

 _And all chances of that could evaporate in a millisecond if she found out you were hauling around a mortal with no real idea why you are in the first place!_ His mind taunted him yet again.

Beckett wondered several times as he gathered up the kine and disembarked from the train whether this girl’s presence at the library had just been a pure coincidence and that he truly was just on a wild goose chase towards a dead end.

Perhaps she had zero knowledge of him or the hunters or the mysterious ally who had been watching over him? Maybe she was just a pawn used to write the note so he would not be able to trace its true creator. 

Maybe she was actually a hunter herself and this was all an elaborate trap he’d fallen into. The Second Inquisition had been getting far better at their skills in subterfuge to achieve their fanatical ends…

A thousand maybes passed through his mind as he maneuvered through the dark woodland, none of which made much sense. He would only get answers to why the events of tonight had transpired with this kine’s consciousness and cooperation; and for that, he would have to see this detour through to the end of the path.

Beckett had brought her to the only place in the state that wouldn’t be under the scrutiny of Camarilla monitors. The whole region around the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts was the domain of a half-crazed elder of his clan known only as Mother Coldfang. She referred to all others of her blood as her ‘pups’ whom she was obligated to protect regardless of their political affiliation. She guarded the area with a pack of her childer, both Embraced and adopted, and granted refuge to any Gangrel (and more often than not their companions) who came through looking for a safe place to spend the day without question.

Though Beckett personally considered her motherly disposition more a self-righteous delusion than a true sense of care for her fellow Kindred, he was thankful this safe zone was here. 

It was two hours till dawn when he found an empty cabin marked with the graffiti ‘Coldfang’, indicating its status as a safe house about a mile from the lakeshore. It hadn’t been used in several months by the looks of things, but now was hardly a time to be finicky about accommodations. 

Beckett put the girl down on a dusty sofa gently. Her face remained calm and neutral as it had the entire night. He set about building a fire in the soot-coated hearth with the wood that was lying about. 

Temperature, so long as it was not high enough to trigger combustion, was not an issue for the vampire. A mortal, however, especially one already injured physically and mentally, could easily be further weakened by the chill. 

As the flames grew, the girl finally stirred. 

She gasped air in her dry throat as her face contorted with distress. 

Beckett expected her to open her eyes and begin to panic at any moment, but she never did. 

Instead, tiny groans like garbled sobs passed her lips and tears leaked from her closed eyes. They washed away some of the dried blood that had thickened against her pallid skin. 

She seemed both awake and not all at once. Her face suggested great emotional distress, perhaps even accompanied by physical pain. As though something was ripping her asunder on the inside. 

He approached slowly, more unsure than ever as to what exactly was occurring with this kine. She groaned again, more deeply like an animal with a knife being twisted into their ribcage. 

Something about the scene reminded Beckett of another face he had looked down upon not oh so many nights ago…another friend he no longer had...

Impulsively, he reached out and laid a hand on the girl’s head. 

Her skin was still far warmer compared to his own but she was cold to the touch. His long pale fingers brushed a stray lock of her dark gold hair overhanging her face away while he pressed his palm gently against her forehead. Her body seemed to crane forward into his touch, making the Gangrel’s dead heart nearly tremble at her responsiveness.

After a few seconds of contact, her whimpers ceased and her face relaxed. Her breathing slowed to a more calm, gentle rhythm as a final tear streamed from one closed eye. Beckett calmly brushed it away with his thumb as the girl’s body untensed and her head slumped deeper into the cushion. 

She was asleep now.

As he pulled his hand away, a bit of her warmth seemed to cling to him. As he moved away from her, it seemed to spread across his cold skin and seep gently into his undead veins. Though it cooled from his vampiric state, it remained detectable throughout him. It made him feel like shivering for the first time in many years.

 _Curiouser and curiouser,_ he thought while flexing his wrist and hand from where the sensation had entered him. 

That same energy still seemed to be radiating off this girl just as it had back in Berkhamsted some five hours previously, albeit a shadow of its initial strength now. And it seemed to extend to everything around her, everything she touched. Even him.

While the Beast was angered in part by her slipping from consciousness yet again before gaining any answers to his mounting list of questions, Beckett himself was also relieved to not have to interview her yet. 

Though he would never admit it aloud, tonight’s events had unnerved the Noddist greatly; he expected the fantastic and unusual from those of his own kind and other species of the night, but not from a simple human. 

This was uncharted territory, and not one he had set out to explore on his own. Yet he had stumbled upon it all the same.

In truth, he needed time to think. Time to rest and clear his mind. And some proper nourishment. 

After a moment of hesitation at leaving her unattended, the Gangrel left the girl behind a locked door and shifted onto all fours to hunt.

It had always been his opinion that animalism was a very underrated discipline; in less than a half hour’s time, he had drunk his fill from a buck and two does of his harem in the forest surrounding the cabin. The Beast purred with satisfaction and his human-like pride shone in his dead heart. Ventrues and Toreadors would be helpless as newborns out here, but he was as at home here under the cold night sky as in Oxfordshire across the Atlantic. 

Very briefly he encountered one of Mother Coldfang’s pack. 

A young Kindred, most likely not a decade since their Embrace. The neonate growled lowly at Beckett in his scraggly protean form that was more an emaciated husky than a wolf. A single glance of his bestial eyes was all it took to make him bow his head and withdraw sheepishly from the circle of woods he had claimed for his stay. 

When he returned to the cabin, the girl was still fast asleep before the fire. The horizon out the dirtied windows was beginning to pale, the starlight growing dimmer by the minute. 

Dawn was on its way.

Though not ideal, Beckett knew it would be best to try and let the scenario play out for another night instead of rushing answers and conclusions less than an hour before sunrise. 

Instead, he cut his thumb open on the edge of one fang and quickly did a small warding spell on the door of the cabin Aisling had shown him during their last meeting to use on his inquiry. It wouldn’t keep the girl from running off if she chose to do so, but would enable him to track her and locate her again quickly. In her current state, he doubted she would get very far anyway. 

He laid her ragged backpack beside the end of the sofa where her head rested. She shifted slightly when he was close to her, but continued to doze peacefully. Looking at her lying there made the warmth from touching her skin flicker inside him again. 

It was not an entirely unpleasant feeling, but not one he was comfortable with either.

After putting another pair of logs onto the fire, Beckett retreated to the bedroom in the back of the cabin. It had no windows and the door was made of heavy oak wood with several locks and bolts to secure it on the inside of the room. There was a mattress on a frame with old stained pillows and small side tables with one unshaded lamp for each. Under a faded rug was an old root cellar door without a proper latch to open it with. 

It was not a problem for Kindred visitors however, as Beckett forced the creaky wooden opening upwards with little effort and quickly inspected the space. It led down to a small, simple depression in the earth under the cabin framed by a few planks of wood. 

The bed was for those with a thrall to watch over them while they slept or felt safe enough to rely on only the locks for protection. 

Though he was not afraid of the girl, he still did not know her true motivations or nature. 

Airing on the side of caution, even if it meant sleeping in the cold hard earth instead of an at least somewhat soft bed, was the best course of action. 

He closed the door back and folded the rug back over it. Calling upon his freshly restored vitae, the Gangrel changed into mist and moved under a small opening under the old carpet and through a gap in the door. Once down there, he felt the lethargy of the coming daylight tug at him even in this form.

Beckett sunk down the earthy bottom of the chamber and fused himself with the ground to sleep. 

His final thoughts before the void of rest took him were of the lingering warmth from the girl also sleeping just above him. 

Though this was all a great departure from his true goal, he felt the urge to know the truth about who or what the girl take firm root within him. 

_But that will have to wait until the next sunset._

***

 **Somewhere Else -** **At The Same Time as The Arrival at The Cabin:**

The hours that passed after their fit and vision were languid and agitating. 

They had spent all their cognitive energy casting out dozens of nets of inquiry across the world, searching for what was only as tangible as a half-remembered dream.

A shot in the dark for any concrete proof of this mysterious new presence that gnawed away at their thoughts relentlessly.

Whenever they closed their eyes, they saw the gentle smile on the blood-streaked face of the girl of dark golden hair and eyes of blue ice. Like an idyllic pagan icon, she shone not unlike a beacon in the darkness of their swirling mind. It filled them with an odd warmth they had not felt in...many, many years.

Almost like lovesickness or bereavement. Or erotic longing or substance addiction.

She was everything to them, all around them, and they were powerless in her grasp.

It terrified and comforted them in a frustrating juxtaposition.

Tiredness clawed at them as they wandered the corridors of the house in a kind of dream-like haze thinking of the girl who for now only existed in their mind.

Their body begged for either rest or sustenance to replenish themselves after the taxing events of tonight. But they could not bring themselves to deliver either to their exhausted flesh.

A sudden flash of fear went through them that they would drown in this intoxication. 

_Y_ _ou must retain yourself!_ The feeble part of their free conscience told them. _You must be able to fight your own desires and weakness for what may come next!_

They listened as best they could. They fed themselves a reasonable amount and found their way back to their bedchamber. Though they curled and twisted into different positions that they often found comfortable for rest, they could not find one that silenced the aching inside them for the girl of dark golden hair and eyes of blue ice...

_Remember who she brings with her. Even the sweetest fruit has a pit ready to choke you._

They grimaced and sunk their nails into the bedsheets as that unpleasant reality sunk in: to find her, they had to find Beckett.

Condescending, incorrigible, confoundingly lucky Beckett. 

They had managed to avoid him for the past decade after unfortunately having to work with him for a time previously. They had hoped to avoid him for a bit longer at least. But once again, fate laughed in their face. As Beckett often did as well.

If he got the last laugh with this girl...they would surely die of shame.

_Best not let that happen, then._

They laid back against the pillows, leaving behind holes in the sheets from the kneading of their fingers at the thought of Beckett getting the best of them once again.

_You must rest. You must be ready. Ready for him. Ready for her. Ready for anything..._

They let the sourness of Beckett's presence and the undoubtful interference he would cause in this whole affair lull them into a determined, focused sleep.

Even in resting they would work toward their goal; their purpose...

Yet despite themselves, they would not completely let go of the enveloping warmth the image of the mysterious girl filled them with.

It was like a long-forgotten memory bubbling to the surface after decades buried beneath time and countless distractions.

Though they were still fully committed to their chosen path, part of them held tightly onto this divergent warmth the girl had brought back to them. Would it really hurt to keep this for themselves?

Only time would tell.

***

**In a Cabin in the Woods Near the Quabbin Reservoir - Central Massachusetts, USA - December 31st, 2018, about 11:30 am local time:**

Waking up had never been such a strenuous activity in all of Thora’s life.

As her mind settled back into the confines of her skull, she felt the heaviness of her bones and flesh again after what seemed like an eternity. Her nose twitched as she breathed in the stuffy, slightly smoky smelling air around her. Her fingers began to tingle slightly as they uncurled from sleep. She blinked her eyes while they were still closed to test them, perhaps to see if they were still there after seeing so much insane shit the night before. They were still there, thankfully.

Slowly, she cracked them open with a long groan from coming out of a comatose-like sleep. 

A blurry ceiling came into view an angular wooden one with exposed beams running symmetrically across the pitch of the roof. It was daylight from what little she could gather from the pale yellow glow emanating from the other side of the room. Where exactly Thora was at the moment she had no idea, but most jails and hospitals did not have wooden ceilings like the room she was currently in, so it seemed she was in neither of those facilities. Thora laid there for what could have been a few minutes or a few hours, just readjusting to the fact that she was actually still alive. 

_You’re here._

_You’re alive._

_You’re here._

_You’re alive._

_You’re here._

_You’re alive._

_You’re here._

_You’re alive._

She said those sentences again and again in her mind, trying to muster the energy to believe them to be true.

But eventually, it became obvious that there were more pressing issues than whether or not she was in the land of the living; first and foremost the fact that she was fucking freezing cold.

Her head still spinning, Thora sat up with a great heave on her elbows. 

She was disgusted by the crinkle noise her stained and blood-soiled clothes made as she moved in them. They were ruined. No amount of hot water and detergent could salvage them, even if she had either at her disposal.

 _Get warm first,_ she told herself as she swung her legs over the edge of the creaky old sofa. _Then you can get out of these clothes._

Her backpack sat right in front of her on the floor. With shaky hands she pulled it into her lap, feeling oddly relieved at seeing something familiar in this unfamiliar room. She closed her eyes and held it against her like a child trying to get security from a stuffed animal. 

The moment of respite didn’t last, though. Memories from last night began to swarm her mind:

**_The stranger._ **

**_The Society of Leopold._ **

**_Her plan._ **

**_Her failure._ **

**_The slaughter…_ **

She flung her eyes back open and trembled.

She couldn’t face those thoughts...not yet. Maybe not ever. 

_Get warm,_ she told herself again. _Get warm. That's what you need to do right now, not dwell on shit you can't change._

There was a fireplace a few feet away from the sofa. The fresh ashen remnants of some logs were in the firebox, indicating that she at least originally had not been alone in arriving here. But she pushed the thought of who or what had built the fire originally aside and scooted onto the floor from the cushion and crawled over to the hearth. 

Thora rifled through her bag for her old sketch journal that had been her only confidant for the last two months. She tore some blank pages out from the back and let them catch on some fading embers left in the firebox. The trick worked, and soon some flames were devouring the paper. She added some kindling and wood that was off to the side and soon a decent sized fire was going. The heat from the blaze made her feel almost comfortable again for the first time in at least...three days now?

She sighed with relief as her body defrosted. After a few minutes in the warm embrace of the hearth, anxiety once again twisted in Thora’s stomach as the realization that she had no idea where she was or how she’d gotten here sunk in properly. 

_Does it really matter?_ She mused numbly. _I don’t have anywhere to be anyhow..._

She added some more logs to the fire and began to inspect the room she was in on shaky legs. This wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination one of those half-a-million-dollar cabins that were showcased on TV. Everything had a film of dust over it and every nook and corner of the room was undoubtedly home to a spider or dozen bunkering down for the winter. All the doors and other painted surfaces had a pile of paint chips at their base. Even the windows looked ancient with various chips and cracks in their thick panes. It was midday judging from the way the sun fell on the bleak winter woodlands surrounding the cabin.

How long had she been out for then? Over 12 hours?

“Jesus Christ…” she muttered to herself as she stared out through the trees. A faint shimmering of gray on the horizon indicated she was close to some kind of large body of water. But that was the only landmark she could see from this vantage point. “How far...am I from last night?”

Last night. 

The most terrifying night of her life. 

Memories swarmed her senses, making her feel weak at the knees once again.

She had been hiding under one of the tables on the third floor when she got caught, right under the big chandelier that was possibly the single most expensive thing in Berkhamsted. It had been a mistake to stick around to see if her admittedly childish, Home Alone-stylized attempts to throw them off the stranger's trail had worked. 

She should have just left. Why the fuck hadn't she?

Thora could still feel the tight grip of one of the Leopold lunatics dragging her out from under the table by the hair and nearly wrenched from its socket being twisted back to stop her attempts of fighting back.

 _“You fucking blood whore!"_ The man had barked above her. _"I knew we shouldn’t have let you go! You just crawled right back to him,_ **_didn’t you_ ** _?”_

The man in leather had slammed a steel-lined boot onto her back then, grinding her into the musty old carpet of the library like a cigarette bud. She had tried to cry out in pain but was silenced by the feeling of a gun barrel press against the back of her skull.

 _“Where’s your master now, huh? He gonna come save you? No? Of course he isn’t, but you still gave everything you had for him anyway. You stupid little cunt, I hope you understand this is what’s_ **_best_ ** _for you!”_

The gun had cocked with an ominous _click_ behind her ear. 

Her heart had pounded like an overworked machine. 

Her body had frozen stiff with terror and agony.

Her eyes had blurred with tears in what she had been sure were her final moments.

Then another voice had spoken, that husky sarcastic voice she had been hearing alongside her own in her head since the Society of Leopold had crashed into her life:

 **_“Is this what is best for you, to die?”_ **the voice had asked.

 _NO_.

That was all Thora had thought. 

Then the world turned upside down even more somehow.

The girl’s entire body felt electrified with some sensation like a caffeine rush on steroids and with that single thought transferred into everything around her.

The man had been flung upwards off her back and twisted around in the air several times. The gun had fired three bullets out of one of the tall windows with a loud shatter. The tables and chairs around her had got tossed about as well, as though her thought was a bomb exploding. Thora had flipped over on her back and seen the Society of Leopold agent impaled in six different places from the sharpened points of the decorative light fixture. His mouth was agape with a scream that never happened and blood rained down on her like some kill shot in a horror movie. Their bodies on the floor and ceiling were completely parallel like some kind of artist had framed the scene for a photograph.

That was when the rest of his crew had come in from the records room where they’d been waiting for the stranger to make his nightly appearance, already pissed off by the booby traps she’d laid.

They were not happy with what they saw, to put it lightly.

 _“Surround her!”_ the one she had guessed was their leader had yelled. _“She’s come to do her master’s dirty work! That consort of Satan!”_

 _“Watch out, she obviously got some of her master’s powers!”_ the only female in the group had warned her teammates. 

_“Die you fucking blood slut!”_ a third man had screamed as he charged toward her with a curved sword high above his head, ready to be brought down on Thora in a matter of moments.

Something about being referred to as belonging to a ‘master’ repeatedly really ticked her off. Combined with the fact that these people were quite intent on killing her and she had just almost had her head blown off minutes before, rage and fear blurred her mind.

Another monster rush of energy came then, much bigger than the first. This time it made everything go white in a blinding flash as she screamed at the top of her lungs like a child wailing for something they didn’t like to stop. She must have screamed for nearly three minutes straight. Everything shook all around and sounds of crashes, gunshots, and screams were drowned out in the mix.

When she was able to see straight again, the other four Leopold agents were strung across the room mutilated in different ways with blood either gushing or pooling around them. Dead as dust.

Back in the cabin where she had sunk down to the floor once again, Thora felt guilt overwhelm her. 

She had committed murder. Or manslaughter, depending on how you looked at it. 

Just by screaming and not wanting to die. Like some sort of supersonic temper tantrum. 

But for what? 

So she could escape and go loiter in some other public service venue and feel sorry for herself? Find someone else to stalk and fantasize about to escape all her other failures? What if she had _actually_ deserved to die? When she thought about all that had happened the past six months or so...it didn't seem that far fetched. 

Maybe the Society of Leopold really had been the good guys...and she was the evil one. 

Her eyes stung but tears would not fall. She was dehydrated like a grape left out in the sun. 

Thora shook away her grief and guilt enough to set about being practical again. She found a bathroom behind one of the doors inside the cabin that, by some stroke of luck, had running water. She spent at least ten minutes gulping icy water from the half-rusted over tap. It was the most delicious drink of water she'd even had in her entire life.

Afterward, she retrieved her backpack from the main room and was determined to take some kind of bath, no matter what. She briefly stopped in front of the other door, one much larger and sturdier than the one to the bathroom. She tried the knob but it was locked tight. The thought of what was contained within the room could give her mind something else to worry about later. Now was time for getting clean at long last.

It seemed like an odd thing to do, strip down naked and take a bath in a cabin in the woods in a location you're completely unfamiliar with. 

But Thora decided she had little left to lose at this point and just went for it. 

Lukewarm water in that old porcelain tub felt like a thousand dollar spa treatment. Using a worn-down bar of soap she had in her backpack, she scrubbed the dried blood and grease from her skin. She even managed to wash her hair with the end of a travel-sized shampoo bottle she’d been using sparingly. She dried herself with a faded towel that would definitely need washing soon and got into clean jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. 

When she walked back into the main room carrying her ruined clothes, she saw the fire and suddenly was overcome with a most likely over-dramatic desire to destroy them by employing the flames. To erase completely the horror of last night at least physically...

Thora got punished for being such a drama queen, though. Tossing them in was a stupid idea and she nearly smothered the fire with them like a dumbass, but with a bit of adjusting, her sweater, jeans, and underwear were all ablaze in a few minutes. 

She watched them burn with an odd mix of satisfaction and sadness. They were all bought for a very different version of Thora Autumn what felt like a thousand years ago. 

Now they were fading away into ash stained with blood and death, like everything else from her old life. Tears finally fell from her eyes as the clothes burned. 

She laid on the old sofa hugging her knees and lamented the past six months as the sobs grew with the flames:

It had started with Keller's suicide. Kell had been one of her best friends and lovers. He was only 17 years old when he took his final breath, unable to cope with the monstrous pain he felt inside any longer. His funeral was like a gate to hell opening.

Following that was a period at her shitty public school where her peers relentlessly bullying her and her surviving best friend and lover, Katrina... Kat was 18 and was shaken by Kell’s death worse than anyone. She had found his body...and it had hurt her more deeply than even Thora had realized. 

It was October when Kat had overdosed on her grandmother's pain meds right beside Thora in her own bed. She was unable to take the pain of losing Kell but was too frightened to die alone. Thora would never forget the limpness of her body in her arms as she begged her to wake up. Her funeral was like getting hit by a truck after dragging yourself through hell.

Thora's family, if you could even call them that, had tried a little harder after Kat died, but they soon fell back into their usual routine of ignoring or berating her at every turn. The kids at school had been no better, and one day Thora had enough and beat Hannah McKenzie upside the head with a cafeteria tray. She was expelled that same day, but from her perspective, it was completely worth it.

Her parents, however, had been furious and even crueler than ever toward her afterward. Her father even let it slip that apparently the only reason she'd been born at all was that he hadn't wanted to use his savings on an abortion. Thora had slapped the bastard across the face and told him she wished they'd done it...because not existing was better than being in their house.

That’s what had pushed her to run away. To just get away from all the despair that had infected and leeched the already sparse joy in the only home she’d ever known. 

And look how that had turned out…

She cried in frustration and grief until she passed out again, floating into an uneasy but thankfully dreamless sleep.

Thora woke up again what must have been hours later judging by how low the fire was. The sun now streamed through the windows into the cabin, indicating it being late afternoon now. She put some more wood on the fire and sat cross-legged in front of the hearth, feeling more lost than ever.

Kell and Kat had been her world, and now they were gone. Their relationship had been such a happy one, if not a bit stereotypical of those of their age group to experiment with polyamory. But it had worked, at least that’s what Thora had thought. And she had planned to build her life around that happiness she had found with them. But now that was all gone.

She’d gone to Berkhamsted to relive a sweet memory they had made there together...perhaps die there if she’d felt it was the only option left.

But things had gotten even stranger, even more deadly during her time in the quiet little town and its library.

And with the sun setting, Thora knew she would soon have to face the consequences of her actions there.

It had occurred to her earlier in the day that the likelihood of the stranger actually being present somewhere in the cabin was fairly high. 

He was the last thing she remembered before she had blacked out in front of the library, his red eyes flashing with some bizarre vision that had soothed her into unconsciousness after the hellish run-in with the Society of Leopold. She only really knew what they had told her about him, and that wasn’t much. Apparently he was “creature of the night” and “fed on the very lifeforce of God’s children”. 

As kooky as the Leopold agents had been, it did make sense given that the strange man only had even visited the library at night and got in and out by becoming a cloud a mist and could apparently turn into a wolf as well. Not to mention that his eyes were fucking glowing red, apparently.

 _A vampire,_ she thought to herself while reaching for her old sketchbook and flipping through the sketches and bits of shitty poetry she’d written during her weeks of watching him. _How fucking cliche. Depressed teenager inspired to live again by a dead man. Fuck me I'm turning into Bella Swan_

She began to tear off the pages and toss them into the fireplace where they turned black and were ash in just a matter of moments. The light was fading outside. If the stranger was around, odds are he would soon make an appearance.

The thought of actually having to face him, talk to him and explain what she’d done, made her want to throw up. She had hoped to just leave the note, fuck with the Leopold guys’ heads, and be on her merry way. That hadn’t happened. 

And if he hadn’t brought her here, well, then she was in even worse shape than she thought.

Maybe this was all a complex psychotic break Thora was having? Maybe she was already dead and this was purgatory? Or hell... 

She had been hearing that voice as soon as she’d realized she’d fucked up and put a target on the stranger’s back by accident to the Society of Leopold, and now it was mysteriously absent. 

Maybe it didn’t feel like talking to her right now?

And, you know, she’d caused a fucking mental explosion that had killed five people and wrecked a library. There was that to consider too. 

Maybe she really was some sort of consort of evil and that's why everyone she’d loved had died. It was better than the shitty explanation that everyone had given her back home: sometimes bad things happen.

Or maybe she was, as the leader of the Society of Leopold had told her: “You are young and foolish and straying too close to things you do not understand! You’re playing with your life, girl!”

_If this game is all I’ve got left of my life, I might as well be a good sport._

Thora remained in front of the fire as the sunlight faded. Things grew colder and the fire seemed hotter than before. She could have left while the sun was still out, but she had chosen not to. 

She would face whatever the night brought with it. And would do so without resistance or any sort of bullshit excuses about how she’d ended up here. If this was her last chance to live, she wanted to live semi-respectfully. 

_Just waiting on a vampire who might only be in my imagination..._

Her heart skipped a beat when there was a creak from behind the locked door. 

Two more followed, like tentative footsteps forward. She pushed her sketchbook under her backpack and clenched her fists in anticipation, knuckles paling as she focused her composure.

 _“Don’t forget to smile,_ ” chuckled a familiar voice, sounding as though it were crackling alongside the wood in the fire. 

She stared after the voice in the flames as it faded away, took a deep breath in, then turned to face the door again.

A figure stood in front of it now. Tall and pale with long dark hair framing his finely featured face. Dark-tinted glass reflected in the firelight, with a slight glow beyond them like the deep red of blood.

“Hello,” she greeted the stranger with a small smile curling on her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wew, I hope that was worth the wait! If not...well I'll make up for it with getting chapter 3 out in less than over a month this time!
> 
> I started and stopped writing this chapter from so many angles because I realized that nothing else I have in mind is going to matter much unless I convince you, the humble readers, to care about Beckett and Thora's plight. So instead of throwing tons of vampire politics and mysterious side plots your way, I opted to keep things simple and just let the first few chapters be about them and not rush the plot so much. 
> 
> I also elected to cut their first meeting in half, showing them apart in this chapter and then together in the following one. It felt like the easiest way to get to know this Beckett I've created (a weird phrase I know) and Thora without having to worry so much about dialogue and early signs of chemistry just yet.
> 
> Characterizing Beckett was once again quite a challenge, but I think I'm beginning to get into a comfort zone with him. Pretty happy with how he ended up after like 16 drafts...
> 
> Please leave a comment and some kudos if you feel so moved, I love to hear ya'll's feedback! 
> 
> See you in chapter 3 (which I can only promise to be up in a month or less, so see you by April 9th!)


	6. New Year's with A Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thora and Beckett finally speak and things begin to make a little bit more sense for them both...

> _“_ _So I am standing at the end of the crossroads_
> 
> _Trying to find myself._
> 
> _And how could I tell you?_
> 
> _(...)_
> 
> _'Cause I am trying to find my place,_
> 
> _Where I'm supposed to be._ _”_
> 
> \- From _Sugarland_ by Papa Mali 

**In a Cabin in the Woods Near the Quabbin Reservoir - Central Massachusetts, USA - December 31st, 2018, about 6:15 pm local time:**

Beckett could not deny he was surprised to see her waiting for him. 

The girl sat before the hearth gazing deeply into the flames when he manifested himself on the other side of the bedroom door. She turned after just a moment and ice blue locked with Beckett’s own beastly red gaze. The sound of wind stirring the trees and roof shingles outside and the sighs from the flames as they gorged on the wood faded into almost nothingness as they stared each other down. They seemed as two members of a rare species meeting after years of solitude; they were as equally fascinated as they were unnerved by one another.

“Hello,” she greeted him in a soft, silvery voice with an almost submissive smile.

The Noddist found himself nearly flustered for the first time in well over a decade. This evening she donned clean clothes and her cream-colored skin and dark golden hair shone with a restored luster in the firelight as she studied him without hardly any hint of fear. Her eyes were focused, spine straightened at attention, legs and shoulder muscles taut with anticipation. 

This was not the dreamy, half-conscious girl he had found last night; she was as ready for him as she could possibly be.

This moment of hesitation only lasted half a second in reality. 

“Good evening,” Beckett purred coolly. 

Though she tried her best to hide it, Beckett saw a shiver run up the girl’s body as he spoke. Her smile faltered and her fingers tightened their grip on her knees for some sort of steadiness. Her lips gaped slightly and exhaled a small breath, as though in awe to hear his voice. 

The vampire dared to move closer, curving around the old sofa with slow purposeful steps. He stopped on the far side, leaning his hip on the arm of the furniture at such an angle that he was gazing down upon her. She watched him wide-eyed and silent as he moved, unfurling her legs from beneath where she sat as though preparing to jump up and run, her breath catching slightly.

Beckett suddenly realized he may have already made an error; he was a Gangrel and could be rather intimidating, and while he preferred it that way, showing his less friendly nature could be a curse rather than a blessing. Especially when dealing with kine. 

To rectify the situation before it became a fully-fledged blunder, he called upon his vitae and cast out a firm but gentle command towards the girl: 

**Do not be afraid.**

It was nothing too demeaning; just enough to ensure she would remain calm and be willing to answer his questions. 

The familiar rush of human aura and whispering stream of thoughts in her mind never came though. The girl shuddered violently instead, as though a cold wind had come upon her. 

When it had passed and she looked back up at Beckett, a far more sour expression came across her face. She took in a deep breath and straightened herself, saying nothing. Her eyes stared back unwaveringly at the vampire, quiet defiance twinkling in those icy irises. 

His disciplines had completely failed on her and she was aware that they had. The Beast roared in his chest, offended by something little more than a pup resisting the pull of its claws. 

_Insolent runt!_ He heard it snarl but did his best to push its imposing voice away.

“Considering it appears you can move and speak without immediate issue, I take it you’ve suffered no serious injuries?” he asked her, attempting to still be cordial with the Beast breathing down his neck.

“No-Nope...I got lucky somehow,” the girl answered, voice wavering slightly but eyes glowing with determination. “Only have a few bruises and some mental trauma from almost getting decapitated. But a decade or so in therapy should help with that.” 

The Gangrel couldn’t help but give her a smirk as he perched himself on the arm of the old furniture. She was a resilient little creature, he would give her that if nothing else. “Lucky indeed. I also count myself fortunate when I escape a bloody affair like that with minimal physical damage. The cognitive aspect can still be a challenge but it does wonders to one’s predicament when you can still flee the scene, which _I_ could not help but notice you were attempting to do last night.”

“And _I_ can’t help but notice you blatantly ignored my warning to just grab and go from the roof.”

Beckett laughed softly. “I would say it was more of a suggestion than a warning. Though, I’ll admit to having been referred to as something of a daredevil. Besides, it seemed the danger had already passed by the time I entered the building.” 

He tilted his head downwards to let his tinted glasses slip down his nose just enough to show his eyes properly. As well as satisfying the more theatrical side of him, this small gesture served a purpose: to gauge how familiar she was with the more unusual physical traits of the supernatural. “And no sooner did _I_ arrive that I discovered _you_ trying to make an exit. In a hurry, were you?”

But the blonde did not seem to pay any mind to his beast mark; no gasps or dumbfounded expressions of shock. Instead, she looked away from Beckett sheepishly as though his words had marred her boldness and not his eyes. 

The little color that was left on her face vanished. Her breathing became shorter and she shivered despite sitting by the fire. When her eyes raised to him again, they were far duller, as though something other than the room where they sat was playing out in front of the girl. It reminded Beckett of when Anatole would be struck by a vision and how his gaze would seem to have some otherworldly curtain drawn across it. 

She whispered weakly after several minutes, “I guess...I guess I was. I didn't know what else to do. Listen, I…” her voice cracked with emotion as she raised her head back to him. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I know that’s lame to say but, it’s the best I’ve got-”

Like blue fire melting ice, her eyes spilled over with a shine of regret and weariness. “I...I’m so sorry!” Her lips quivered, and before she could stop herself, a sob erupted from her throat. She buried her face in her hands as one sob after another wracked her.

Even the Beast even paused as the young kine wept before Beckett with such earnestness...such hopelessness. It made his dead heart heavy with guilt at having brought her here and putting her in this position. But there was nothing he could do about that now. All he could do was let this bizarre interaction play out and do his best to make it as painless as possible for them both.

Slowly he sank down to the dusty floor as well. He took off his sunglasses and set them off to the side, crossing his legs and letting the back of his head lean on the sofa cushion. The girl had noticed his change in position, peeking through a gap in her hair which was currently spilling over the side of her face. Beckett remained still with his hands folded in his lap in the most non-threatening manner he was capable of and waited.

They gazed at each other that way for at least an hour. It felt almost as though they were daring one another to break the silence first. She peaked out from behind a veil of dark blonde hair that spilled over her face. It was almost playful in a way but also full of fear like a cornered animal glancing out at a hunter.

The kine once again reminded Beckett of another woman he had tried to talk to after disrupting his research, only she had hair black as night and eyes a cold green like ferns crusted by frost. He could only pray this did not end as that encounter had.

 _Focus,_ he told himself as he winced with regret. _Now isn’t the time to think about Lucita..._

The girl sat up again at that moment, her hair sliding away to reveal her face once more. Her brows knit together with something like distress, but not in fear of the Gangrel...but _for him_. 

Her eyes were gleaming with some emotion that had not been there before: a deep gaze of compassion. 

Beckett once again felt the odd sensation of warmth coming off her and into him as she stared as though she were looking into a mirror. It was a confusing sensation, almost intimate but not violating in nature. He expected the Beast to be roaring for him to attack or flee, but it remained silent, as though spellbound by a kine barely older than a child.

For what could have been only a minute or another hour entirely, Beckett was awash in the girl’s mysterious gaze. He did not move a muscle the entire time, half out of curiosity and half out of fear of what might occur if he did.

The girl seemed to suddenly become self-conscious of what was happening and sharply turned to look behind herself at the lowering flames. She shoved in another pair of logs haphazardly, giving Beckett a moment to shake off the bizarre sensation. The warmth dissipated quicker this time.

She sighed heavily. “Sorry I...just sorta exploded like that. It happens to me a lot. I think I can put on a brave face and just be all casual through something and then the reality crashes into me like a nuclear bomb and I can’t cope. Why am I even telling you this; you don’t give a shit that I’m a crybaby…”

Beckett merely blinked at her, unsure what to say. Was he just supposed to ignore what she had just done to him? It seemed so...at least for now.

Another few minutes of silence passed before the blonde abruptly began to giggle to herself. “Of course, all this could just be a major psychotic break and I’m really sitting in a white padded room somewhere talking to myself!” she laughed wearily.

“That would be quite the psychosis,” Beckett commented with a small smile, using a more gentle tone of voice than he had before. “You would be the star of every psychology publication on the eastern seaboard.”

“And I guess you’d be one of my imaginary friends in the lonely hollow of my crazy ass skull that I constantly insist is real!”

The Gangrel chuckled. “I have heard many things in my time about who or what I am, but being an imaginary friend for a victim of severe mental deterioration has never come up till now…”

“Glad I could give you something new, vampire.” she half-smiled at him. “Well, I broke down hysterically crying in front of you already, so the worst thing that could have happened already has...” 

“You seem awfully sure I am a vampire, why is that?” Beckett asked.

The girl gave a more nervous laugh, looking bemused. “Uh…your eyes are glowing red...and you only come out at night and you can turn into mist and a werewolf and you know, those Society of Leopold fucks told me you were one and as much as I didn’t care for them, it’s the only real explanation that makes sense.”

He shot her a wry smile. “I suppose it does.”

She chewed her lip, looking deep in thought for a moment before saying, “I know you have questions...I don’t think I’m going to violently explode into tears again, but no promises. So you can try to ask now.”

Beckett nodded, shifting slightly nearer to the girl on the floor. Her shoulders tensed slightly at him moving closer but she did not look distressed by it. The Noddist was careful to leave a good three feet or so between them; he had just gotten her talking at last, best not push his luck.

“Why were you watching me?” he asked softly.

The kine shrugged her shoulders, a look of guilt coming across her face. “Boredom. Loneliness. Curiosity. Pick your adjective.” 

Beckett smirked. “Do I win something if I do?” 

“All I’ve got’s a shitty backpack, sorry.”

“You can hold onto that.”

Beckett spent the next two and a half hours interviewing the girl. He was again, surprised by how willingly she opened up to him, especially after such a rough start. 

She was a runaway who had been living in the Berkhamsted library weeks before he even had arrived to do his research. She had observed him in secret from various hiding places all around the archives room where he had spent most of his time. There wasn’t a lot of excitement having to hide oneself in an old library, so evidently his arrival had been quite the novelty. The entire thing had been an innocent enough little game she had been playing until the Society of Leopold had come calling. 

It would be a lie to say he was not alarmed that a kine had been so close and he had not detected her, but the more he spoke with the girl the more apparent it became that she was not an ordinary mortal. It made him think back to earlier in the evening when his disciplines had seemed to fail her and how twice now she had, knowingly or not, cast out something like a kind of power over him. Once at the library, once here tonight. And that odd, warming sensation. 

_Full of surprises indeed..._

“How did the Society of Leopold connect the dots between the two of us?” he asked. 

She looked down at the floor, embarrassed. “I...I draw things. And I kinda was drawing you one day,” she admitted. “This lady came up behind me in the library when I was working on the drawing and saw it and started questioning me about who I was drawing. I said no one in particular; then she pulled out some photos of you and asked again. I claimed I had never seen you before but she wasn’t buying it. She grabbed my arm and threatened to call the police on me right then and there for trespassing and illegally inhabiting a public space if I didn’t go with her right away.” 

The Beast growled at the idea of SI hunters having their photograph, but there was little that could be done about that now. “Did you go with the woman?” he pressed.

The girl nodded. “Yeah, I did... She took me out into the parking lot to a white van and I got put in the back and there were four guys back there. They started interrogating me about when and where I had seen you… I tried not to tell them anything...but they claimed they had been sent by my parents to look for me and were holding them in custody and were going to let them rot in some secret prison the rest of their lives waiting to hear if they found me if I didn’t start talking.” 

She took a pause, breathing heavily. Her hands shook. “I should have known it was a ruse knowing my fucking parents but I fell for it,” she added bitterly, almost to herself rather than to Beckett. Her voice wavered once again, but she kept herself composed this time. “If it’s any consolation, I told them I didn’t think you’d done anything that wrong...

“Are your parents looking for you?” Beckett inquired. She was eighteen, or so she had claimed, but obviously was not self-sufficient if she had been living in a library.

“Maybe have gone through the motions of it by now,” she answered grimly. “But not exactly hanging missing person’s posters all over town. I checked the missing persons’ board online a week after I started staying in Berkhamsted and nothing…” She looked almost ashamed to admit her parents had not come looking for her. 

He decided not to inquire about her family further. At least not yet.

“Well, I’m sure the Society of Leopold was delighted that you were around to keep an eye on me for them! Pity they aren’t around to give you a reward now.” he teased, hoping to lighten the mood slightly. 

She didn’t take his dark humor well, though. “I wasn’t working for them!” she hissed indignantly. “They tricked me!”

“Oh I have no doubt they did,” Beckett said smoothly, hoping not to break the uneasy trust he had formed with her. “No need to get hot under the collar.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “...you’re just always like this aren’t you?”

The Gangrel cocked his head. “Like what?”

“Purposefully sarcastic and aggravating but also so sharp that no one can tell you to fuck off easily,” the girl explained with a mischievous smile.

“You catch on fast” Beckett huffed, half-amused. “Why did they let you go after interrogating you?”

“Because I was a ‘pitiful example of the lost godless youth of the world’,” she recalled with a shudder. “They gave me some cash and told me to clear out of Berkhamsted before sunset or the next time they saw me I’d be treated the same as one of your kind.”

“They gave you money?”

She hung her head. “Yeah...it’s gone now.” 

“What did you spend it on?” he asked.

“Bullshit for booby traps because my vapid teenage mind decided to recreate Home Alone would be the best way to deal with crazy secret police packing a ton of heat.” the girl explained dryly, a hint of shame in her voice.

Beckett laughed heartily at her confession; not at her, but rather at the implications for the would-be murderers. “Oh, I’m sure they loved that!”

She smiled weakly. “Well, you know the rest. Now here we are. Uh, by the way, am I allowed to know where ‘here’ is?”

Beckett stopped laughing and hardened his gaze. “You’re still in Massachusetts. But I do not know the rest and you know full and well.” 

A long pause after that. She began to shake and avert her eyes again. Beckett gritted his teeth, half out of frustration at having to wait this long to get around to the heart of the matter, half out of worry for upsetting this already rattled youth further.

She raised eyes back to him, tears welling up once more as she whispered, “...I don’t even understand what the hell happened, okay?”

Beckett shifted closer and dared to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched at the contact but did not pull away. The girl merely gazed up at him with those crystalline eyes, wearing uncertainty and pain on her face like a shroud. 

“I gathered that much,” he whispered to her. “Please, try and tell me. I may be able to help you understand…”

“What’s the point if you’re just gonna kill me after we’re done here anyway?” she whimpered miserably.

Beckett was taken aback. “ _When_ have I said _anything_ about killing you?”

“I mean, it’s obvious you don’t want people knowing about you - your kind or whatever it is. Why else would you sneak around so much at night? I’m a dumbass about a lot of things but I can take a hint when something is supposed to be a secret.”

“You wouldn’t still be alive right now if you did not possess some form of intelligence,” he growled, anger about her continuous lack of self-worth growing in him. “You are not the first to stumble into our little underworld by chance and it is very doubtful you will be the last.”

He forced his voice to soften before he firmly stated: “I am not going to kill you.”

She screwed her eyes shut and cried for a few minutes after that. Beckett sat in silence, letting her expel her grief. Then, slowly but surely, she told what had happened on the third floor of the library. He didn’t rush her; she paused to cry on several occasions and he rubbed her shoulder gently to give her what comfort he could allow himself to. 

Everything Beckett had seen the night before matched her retelling. The kine on the chandelier, the ear-splitting scream, the blinding flash of light, even order in which the windows were shattered. Another hour passed, and after hearing her tale, Beckett had formed a fairly solid hypothesis on what had transpired. 

It did not explain everything, but at least most of it. 

While he did not have hands-on experience with this phenomenon, he was connected to an individual who did. The only thing that worried the Noddist had not been in contact with her in over a year. But surely once he explained the situation and the girl’s plight she would not refuse the request he had in mind-

“...was that you talking to me?” the girl was asking when he suddenly became aware that she was speaking to him.

“Come again?” 

“The voice...in my head - was that...you?”

“...No.”

She looked deflated at that answer but gave a small chuckle. “Oh. Cool. So I am just out of my mind.”

“That remains to be seen,” Beckett said as he stood. “Thank you for your honesty. I have some things to sort out based on what you’ve said before I decide how to move forward. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Uh, sure… Hey,” she said just as he turned to leave the room. “While you do that, is it okay if I step outside? I..need some air.”

He nodded and she looked away, blushing again slightly. He couldn’t help but laugh to himself at her bold yet easily ruffled demeanor. After the girl was gone, Beckett returned to the bedroom at the back of the cabin.

In his cross-body bag he had left on an old chair in the corner was a long black cord shoved into an ancient electrical outlet. Beckett pulled out a smartphone from the bag, a controversial device for a Kindred to possess these nights. It was fully charged.

Now he had just had to think of what to say to his contact who would hopefully give salvation to this young girl. It was well after midnight, but she was one for the nightlife.

If this did not work he had no idea what would become of her. 

He decided, then, to keep things straight forward as he opened to screen to send a text message:

_I need help._

_Why thank you and Happy New Year to you as well Beckett!_

_This is serious. We can play small talk later._

_What’s up?_

_I believe I may have found one of your Orphans._

_How are you sure?_

_I spoke with her at length. A mysterious voice in her head followed by unexplained abilities. Sound familiar?_

_What kind of “abilities”?_

_A sudden burst of energy so strong it flung five SI hunters around like ragdolls and left none alive._

_I saw it first hand._

_Fuck._

_That’s some power._

_My Awakening was getting a pipe to stop leaking._

_That suits you._

_She’s a runaway with no intention of returning to her family._

_Sounds like a perfect fit for your lot._

_How old is she?_

_My chantry isn’t gonna want to get involved if kidnapping charges could apply._

_Eighteen or so she says._

_Can you help or not? I need an answer. I’m in the middle of an important project._

_And you think I’m not?_

_Look I’m at my sister’s and the kids are all visiting before school starts back._

_I know I know damned humans and their loved ones._

_I need to make some calls before I can give you an answer._

_Can you not snack on her or anything in that time?_

_What kind of monster do you think I am?_

_It’s a joke Beckett._

_I’ll be waiting. Don’t bail on me._

_Patience is a virtue, wolf-boy._

_Never call me that again._

_Damn you’re no fun._

_Talk to you soon._

Beckett let a sigh out through his nose as the screen went dark. All he could do now was wait to hear if Nola Spier, a Hollow One, would be able to help this mysterious girl.

***

Thora felt both emotionally drained and lighter-hearted all at once after her long conversation with the stranger. She walked the perimeter of the cabin several times, savoring the chilly night air. Her head was aching a bit again and her face was puffy from crying but it was all still a vast improvement over last night. 

The surrounding woods were quiet without even the calls of animals. It was both eerie and peaceful. She stayed outside until her skin began to feel numb. When she re-entered, the stranger was just coming out of the back room. He looked sorta pissy so she elected not to say anything to him.

“I have...things to attend to,” he muttered tersely on his way out the front door. “Stay here for now.”

Then, just like that, Thora was alone again. 

She guessed fairly quickly what it was he was doing. _Guess needed a drink - or to eat… Is it a drink or food with vampires? I wonder if it’s rude to ask…_

Time passed and without much else to do, she began going through the contents of her backpack. 

She had tried her best to be practical when she ran away from home and mostly had done a good job at keeping it that way. 

There were two more changes of clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a comb, deodorant, some granola bars, some random individually wrapped candies, two cans of Mountain Dew, an empty water bottle, a pencil case, a roll of bath tissue, a plastic baggie filled with first aid supplies and medicines, a small portable lantern with a change of batteries, a worn-down plushie lamb called Woola, an old cotton blanket bound up tightly with rubber bands to save space, a tin box full of precious mementos from her old life, an old MP3 player with even older headphones, and a second box made of laminated cardboard that housed the most expensive thing she had brought with her: a box set of tarot cards with a guide book and an old birthday note from Keller and Kat. 

She briefly thought about asking the cards about her situation, but when she lifted the top of the box she was overwhelmed with the faint but lingering smell of incense from Kat’s old room. She shut it back and shoved it away from where she sat.

“Not a fan of tarot?” asked the stranger, who had returned with a sound, from beside the front door.

“I’m not a fan of having someone scare the hell out of me repeatedly…” she replied dryly after nearly jumping out of her skin.

He gave one of those odd, crooked smiles he seemed to favor. That combined with his smoky voice and red eyes made her gut tighten in something between daunting fear and giddy excitement. He moved closer, pale skin nearly reflecting the firelight. The vampire stared at her for a time, as though searching for something in her eyes.

“Changed your mind about killing me and planning the best way to?” Thora asked after a time.

He huffed. “Do you actually _want_ to die?”

The question stung like having her bare hand shoved into the flames. 

“I don’t know,” she replied softly, feeling the numbness of grief wash over her again. “I can’t see myself living. Especially not after what I did last night...”

He tilted his head slightly. “Why not?”

The girl sighed. “Because people I wanted to live on with are gone. And...I can’t see any way to move forward without them. I know it’s pathetic but I - I needed them. I don’t have anything without them. And all I’ve done since I lost them is cause other people hurt, on purpose or by accident. And I don’t want to do that, not to you or anyone else.”

The strange dark-haired man paced around the sofa with a tight look on his face, as though debating on what to say next. Thora just watched him. It was odd seeing him so close like this, speaking with him, even feeling his hand on her shoulder after nearly two weeks of watching him nightly from inside a storage locker or from above on a balcony. 

Technically she had been close to him before...when she had had that bizarre vision while looking into his eyes before passing out. But somehow she felt that he didn’t know about that and she had omitted that detail from her recount of last night.

He had been quite kind to her, all things considered. Gotten her away from the police, given her shelter, not sucked her dry or whatever it was vampires actually did. Though she didn’t understand what she had done to deserve such treatment or how long his kindness might last, she was grateful to him.

“If there was a way forward, would you take it?” the man asked, interrupting her idle thoughts.

Thora shrugged. “I don’t know. Depends on what it was I guess…” A thought occurred to her then. “Hey, this isn’t like code for asking me if I want to be a vampire, is it?”

“ _No_ ,” he growled lowly, red eyes flashing with anger.

“Okay okay, sorry!” Thora apologized quickly and put her hands up to indicate her innocence. “I’ve only known about vampires for like three days now so sorry if I’m a bit ignorant of the social cues involved.”

The stranger’s expression returned to normal and he moved around to sit stiffly on the edge of the couch, leaning forward. His eyes were fixed upon her like glue. She shifted slightly forward but didn’t feel like she would be very comfortable any closer. 

When he had touched her earlier, a cold unlike anything else she had ever felt had sunk into her through her clothes even. It hadn’t chilled her was the bizarre thing; in fact it made her alert, like being dunked underwater suddenly. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience but was weird and things were weird enough as it was sitting and having a conversation with the vampire she’d been stalking for the last two weeks.

_The fuck has my life come to?_

“I have a hypothesis about what happened to you last night. If you would care to hear it…” the vampire announced suddenly.

“Sure. Not like I’m in a hurry to go anywhere anyhow.” 

He chuckled before more seriously explaining: “It is my belief that last night, you experienced an event known as an Awakening. A supernatural epiphany, of sorts.”

Thora blinked at him, confused. “...Neat. The hell does that mean?”

“It means you came to the conclusion that existence is not as set in stone as you once thought. You opened your mind to the possibility of continuing to live even when it seemed death was imminent for you. And the world around you responded to this revelation in turn.”

A chill went down her spine as she thought back to the library. “...oookay…”

The vampire smirked. “To put it more simplistically, not to insult your intelligence,” Thora opened her mouth to protest that comment but he continued before she could. “You became someone with the ability to alter reality around you. Those Society of Leopold hunters were, unfortunately, the trigger for this potential to make itself known and got caught in the crosshairs. 

He paused before adding: “And before you begin to feel any more guilty about the fate that befell them, know they would have most certainly killed you had you told them even half of what you have told me this evening. Burnt you at the stake even, if they were traditionalists. They hate your kind just as much as mine, some do even more so.” 

“What is ‘my kind’?” Thora asked, disbelief making her voice sound hollow and frightened like a child.

The stranger spoke softly, “A mage or a witch are the terms typically used to identify such a person...”

Only the crackling of the fire was heard for several minutes after that statement. Thora’s mind was whirling with the information. Part of her was insisting this was all an elaborate dream and it was finally time to wake up. Part of her was bargaining with the idea of actually being in a mental institution somewhere and perhaps this strange man was how her mind processed her doctor there.

But for some reason, it all made sense. Not logical sense. But somehow in this bizarre reality of vampires, secret police for killing vampires, and bizarre voices that came and went triggered power inside her...it all fit into place. 

She hadn’t meant to, but she burst into laughter once again. “Sure, I’ll be a witch!” she cackled, leaning over clutching her stomach as it ached from laughing. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

The vampire shook his head. “I assure you I’m being quite genuine. Though this is only an educated guess at the moment.” 

Her laughter faded slowly. She panted slightly from the exertion. “So if your guess about me going through magic puberty is right, what does that mean for me?” 

“I have some connections to others who have experienced an Awakening out on the West Coast,” the man told her. “They have something of their own underground society and tend to look out for and attempt to guide younger members of their kind. A category I suspect you’d fit into well.”

Thora thought about the idea for a moment before saying, “So what, you’re gonna take me to some magic witch-mage school and drop me on the doorstep like an abandoned baby?” 

“If all goes smoothly with my contact, then yes. Though not in as callous a manner as that,” he smirked at her in the way that made her cheeks burn, tilting his head slightly upwards. 

She tried not to let it bother her as much by continuing on: “Why go through this much hassle to help me when I could have gotten you killed?”

“They, or should I say one of them at any rate, have helped me several times in the past. I give them assistance when I can afford to in return. This will help continue our mutually beneficial relationship.” the dark-haired man explained.

“And helping me is helping them?’

“Yes,” he said simply. “Plus I also feel no animosity towards you despite your _stalkerish_ behavior. You nearly paid for your trespasses with your head and that’s plenty of punishment in my opinion.”

Thora felt an odd wave of relief hearing him say that. He had every reason to hate her, and yet here he was bending over backward to help her. “But what if you’re wrong that I’ve...had an Awakening? What happens then?”

“I find that Nola and her lot can be a bit pretentious...but not heartless. I’m sure they’ll still help you find your way.”

He looked to the window after that, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. He checked it, sighed, then rose to his impressive height and looked down at Thora again.

“Dawn will be here soon. Nola said she can most likely help but she won’t be able to give me a firm answer until tomorrow evening. I suppose we can stay here to wait. Can I trust you not to run off for another day?”

“Again, I don’t really have anywhere else to be.” Thora reminded him.

He smiled at her. “Well, I’ll bid you good day then. You can use the bedroom if you wish, I never used the bed if it would bother you if I had. I have arrangements elsewhere for the day but I’ll still be around the cabin.”

The stranger turned to leave then. Thora had no objections to anything he had said, but she had to know one thing before continuing along with this strange new reality she had fallen into like Alice in Wonderland.

“Wait!” she called after him as he opened the door and prepared to disappear like he seemed gifted in doing. “Uh...what’s your name? If I’m allowed to know…”

The man stared deeply at her for a minute, dark hair shining in the moonlight streaming into the cabin through the doorway. 

“How rude me not to have introduced myself earlier…” he said smoothly. His voice made her shiver once again. “My name is Beckett.”

 _Beckett_. The world seemed to stop spinning for a moment as the name registered in her mind. 

“...and may I have your name?” Beckett asked. 

“It’s Thora…” she answered breathlessly.

Beckett tilted his head in that curious sort of way. “Hmm, well...good day to you then, Thora.”

And with that, the former stranger strode off into the night after shutting the door. Thora stood there for several minutes, her head spinning. He was a stranger to her no more. He was Beckett. And he had told her fantastic things about who she was (or who she could be at any rate). 

Despite how convoluted and bizarre it all was...she believed him. Every word he had said.

Maybe the horror she had lived through in Berkhamsted was an Awakening to something new for her…

Tiredness was weighing heavily on her now, though. She could rehash all these things and sort out her feelings later in the day. She elected not to use the bedroom since it was warmer nearer the fireplace. Plus, as much as she was finding herself already missing Beckett’s unusual presence, it just didn’t seem right to sleep where he had so soon afterward.

Unfurling the rubber bands on her blanket and restocking the fire a final time, Thora curled up on the creaky old sofa, holding Woola the lamb tight. She watched the flames dance and thought of the red gaze of Beckett as sleep came upon her just as dawn broke over the cabin.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, she began to imagine a new life for herself. 

A new life...as a witch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wew there goes chapter 3 and we are roughly 1/7th of the way through the whole thing! Silver lining to Coronavirus quartine is getting plenty of time to work on my fics!
> 
> Also sorry the dialogue was cringy in a lot of places, it isn't one of my strong suites but I hope to get better at it as time goes on.
> 
> So Thora and Beckett have officially met! Beckett has connected with a Hollow One who might be able to bring Thora into the world of the Awakened and magic! But will Thora take this new shot at life for herself? And how will Beckett feel traveling with her to meet Nola?
> 
> And what happened with Lucita? Why is it weighing so heavily on our poor Gangrel?
> 
> The plot thickens!
> 
> Tell me what you guys think so far!
> 
> See you next chapter :D


	7. The Dance Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our titular Gangel and Runaway begin their journey toward the West coast...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 04/26/2020
> 
> REWRITTEN, ADDED TO, AND UPDATED 9/23/2020
> 
> Hey guys! Thanks for all of your patience with me. Life has been rough so things have gotten put on hold countless times over the past couple of months. That said, not a day has passed I haven't been tinkering with our Gangrel and our Runway characters and plotlines. I'd like to think the story gets better and better with each revision but there's no real way of knowing unless we give it a go and write it!
> 
> I've rewritten this chapter to give Beckett and Thora some bonding time without too many other distractions. Just them on the road getting to know each other with a few shenanigans along the way. They're not quite to flirting territory but we'll get there!
> 
> Before we get started a big shoutout and thanks to MissingTriforce for helping me through like a billion rough drafts and ideas for this section of the story. You are an absolute rock star and if we ever meet IRL you totally deserve a fancy coffee on me :D
> 
> Alright, let's get back to these two idiots so they can hurry up and fall in love already!

> “ _Unless I dreamed it,_
> 
> _This was of yore:_
> 
> _I never told it_
> 
> _To mortal before;_
> 
> _‘ Never remembered_
> 
> _But in my dreams,_
> 
> _What to me waking_
> 
> _A miracle seems._ ”

\- From _Pilgrims_ by Henry David Thoreau 

**On the Road - From the Quabbin Reservoir, Central Massachusetts to near Elmira, New York, United States - January 1st to January 4th, 2019:**

“ _WITCH!”_

_“Witch…”_

_“WITCH!”_

_“Witch…”_

_“WITCH!_ ”

“ _Witch...WITCH!_ ” the voices chanted endlessly, shifting between thin velvety whispers to long harsh bellows all around Thora as she fled.

She weaved through the endless maze that shifted from bookshelves to trees to black walls, all of them unfamiliar. The corridors were dark and cramped and she could never seem to get ahead of her pursuers. She wanted to run but could not, only stumble along quickly or barely take a step every minute. Her chest was tight like her lungs refused to take in the air of this horrid place and her mind spun with the dizzying twists and turns of the paths she followed helplessly.

She didn’t remember how she came to be here or why. 

All she knew was that she had to get away. 

Had to get away.

Had to stay alive.

For lingering just a few steps behind her were faceless figures in leather, each holding a shiny blue-silver blade that was the only illumination to be had in this place. The weapons were curved like half-smiles and reflected Thora’s face when they loomed too near her, which was often as she struggled forward.

Or was it backward? Or sideways? Up or down? She couldn’t tell. All motion was blurred and heavy. 

She just kept trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and those seemingly grinning blades.

And on and on the voices repeated that same word as she went. Whether they were the voices of the hunters or of the mass of twisting halls she did not know. All she could be sure of was that they were referring to her as they chanted endlessly:

 _“WITCH! Witch..._ ” 

Suddenly a shape darted out in front of her on the path. It caused Thora to trip and fall in slow motion, ending up on her back against the cold floor of the maze. Though she struggled and cursed at her body to cooperate, she could not move from the spot she had landed, paralyzed save for her head which she whipped to one side when she heard a sort of **_hiss_ **from one the side of the corridor. 

It was the same being that had caused her to fall. It was an animal with four legs but in the darkness, she could make out little else. It bore into her with unseen eyes, searching and sitting at attention against the black wall, almost invisible amongst the inkiness all around.

“Are you trying to get away too?” she asked the shape breathlessly as footsteps approached from all angles.

There was no answer, only the twinkle of twin bright orbs of green fire and another shimmer of blades, this time dozens of them altogether. Fear filled her but after a moment, she realized it was not fire and blades but a face! 

A smile made of dozens of switchblade teeth and eyes of emerald flame. 

It made another hissing sound, this time more like laughter or so Thora thought. Then a familiar husky voice said, “Get away? Is that all you want to do, Thora?” the animal snickered. “Is that all you want?”

The voices meanwhile coiled around her like snakes...writhing and making her skin prickle with goosebumps as they slid past. Her heart pounded in her ears but was drowned out by their ceaseless repetition. “ _WITCH, WITCH, WITCH!_ ” 

They cried endlessly as the figures of the hunters began to crowd around where she laid.

Thora glanced desperately back at the face for any sort of help...but it was gone. Just as her hunters threatened to overwhelm her alongside the maddening chorus, it all seemed to spiral and tumble out of focus.

Had she died? Had she escaped? Been rescued?

It turned out to be none of the three as she soon fluttered her eyes open and discovered she’d rolled off the old sofa in the cabin and fallen onto the cold wood floor. The hunters, the maze, and the snickering face had all been a dream. And her salvation had been rolling out of bed like a dumbass.

Her heart was pounding and she was sweating pinballs despite the low temperature. The haunting chant of the maze’s voices and the faceless hunters forboding blades lingered in her mind as Thora got to her feet. “Witch…” she whispered to herself as she walked to the dirty window across the room. The sky outside was darkening again, streaked with pink and lavender as the sunlight faded above the trees. Only the soft murmur of wind made any noise in the wintery woodlands surrounding the cabin. Memories of the last few nights of her life came flooding back and she shivered again. “That’s right, I’m a witch, apparently…”

Everything still felt so surreal, almost to the point of ridiculousness.

Thora’s current reality was that she was alone (or was she?) in a cabin in the woods. She had been brought here by the vampire she had been stalking. She had been stalking a vampire while living homeless in a library, after running away from home. The vampire and subject of her stalkerish pursuits had brought her to this cabin after she accidentally killed five secret agent supernatural hunters with magic powers that had gotten activated somehow in the chaos. 

The scariest part of all: none of that was an exaggeration. 

Being a runaway from a shitty home was now the most normal thing about her entire situation. Could this really happen? Suddenly everything just became supernatural like a YA novel series and she was lucky enough to have some powerful savior figure to lead her on the path to unlocking the 'truth about herself' or some such preachiness.

 _Maybe I am insane…_ Thora mused as she watched the light fade for a while, pressing her cheek against the glass pane to cool her reddened face. _But I’m even having nightmares while being trapped inside my own fucking head! Unless the nightmares are the reality and this is the dream...or something. Wow, the more I think about this the more fucked it all seems._

With some effort, she pushed those second-guessing thoughts away. If she was crazy, then she obviously wasn’t sane enough to snap out of it because this was all still happening around her. So might as well go along with the regularly scheduled programming, for the time being anyhow.

She set about gathering up her sparse belongings into her old backpack. With night setting in, the girl figured it wouldn’t be long before her mysterious stalker victim/savior and/or kidnapper appeared. He had said he was taking her someplace where there were others of 'her kind', so she better be ready to leave. Even if he was just in her imagination, it would be rude to keep Beckett waiting after all the trouble she had caused him.

 _Beckett_. 

It was still odd to think of him having a name. In fact, his name was about all she knew about him despite having sobbed and poured her depressing life story out to him the night before.

Most of the lessons she was taught in her ‘normal’ upbringing - not talking to strangers, not going off with strangers, not taking people’s word at face value - all seemed to be moot now. She had done all of the above and had no intention of changing her trajectory in the situation. 

_Surely if he was going to assault me or bite me or whatever he would have done it by now?_ She reasoned as she rolled up her blanket and shoved it into the bag. Beckett seemed like someone who would take action if he wanted something; like breaking into a library to read, for example. So if he’d had some kind of nefarious purpose for her, it probably would have happened by now.

A pang of guilt suddenly went through her for thinking of him in such a lowly way. He had been very respectful towards her all things considered...except for that weird mental net casting thing he did when he stared at her sometimes...but he had stopped the last time when he had noticed it bothered her. 

_I don’t have any reason_ **_not_ ** _to trust him...whether I should trust him, well...it’s most exciting than sitting around alone in a library._

After Thora’s bag was packed, she put on some deodorant and washed her face in the cold water from the tap. She forced the old comb she had through her thick, tangled hair until it was more or less smooth and pulled it back in a lazy ponytail. She refilled her water bottle and ate a granola bar, though her natural hunger had not yet returned after so many disturbed nights in a row. She forced it down regardless, she would need her energy if they were going to bed on the move.

After putting her grooming paraphernalia away, she settled back on the old sofa and waited, her backpack by her side and her hands fidgeting somewhat nervously on her old black jeans.

_Is this my new normal routine? Waiting for a vampire? God, what would Kell and Kat think..._

The wait was not a long one.

***

Nola did not have good news when she called shortly after sunset. 

Evidently, all of her fellows were taking longer New Year’s holidays than expected and due to changes in protocol concerning outsiders (which Nola had failed to mention or purposefully neglected to tell him the night before), Thora would not be granted sanctuary with them until all their members could meet and vote on the matter. 

That left Beckett in charge of her safety and care for up to a month, though he was assured it would not be that long. 

“Listen, it isn’t that big a deal,“ the witch tried to pander to him. “I’ll wire you some money for her upkeep and any travel fare you guys may need to head out this way-”

It was a respectable attempt, but the Gangrel was having none of it.

“I am _not_ a goddamned babysitting service!” he snarled into the phone. “Do you realize how ridiculously hypocritical it is that you, a group of outsiders who do not wish to conform to the regulations set down by your elders, refuse to accept another based solely on procedural bureaucratic nonsense?”

The Hollow Ones tended to be the unofficial leaders of the motley crews of magi throughout the world, all of which refused to align themselves with their equivalent of the Camarilla or Sabbat for one reason or another. The Hollowers shared three main things in common: rejecting the “traditional” methods of practicing magic, corporate gothic clothing, and beverages like coffee and absinthe to show their disdain for conformity in existence.

They also, as it happened, tended to all have various personal issues that caused consternation for the entire sect on a semi-regular basis. Whenever he worked with Nola, she always had some raucous tale to share concerning a failed relationship or petty feud between her comrades that escalated to nearly causing the collapse of their entire hodgepodge society. 

They usually skated past sheer disaster by a hair’s width. 

Usually. 

Apparently their luck had run out and the Beast was fuming at the notion of human melodramatics throwing a wrench into their plans. Beckett sank his claw-nails into the bark of the tree he was leaning on to provide some outlet for its anger.

“Nonsense or not, it’s the way it is!” Nola replied sharply. “We’ve had to change some things since your last visit, you know. Not that you bothered to ask before making such a big request!”

There had apparently been a particularly bad incident with the Hollow Ones in San Francisco (the _Waydown Chantry_ as they called it) on Halloween. Overdoses, fistfights, and domestic violence of nearly every variety had played out _BEFORE_ hunters had come calling upon the whole chantry, tipped off by the family one of their own most prestigious alumni. Though Beckett had never met her, the witch called Penny Dreadful was a likable sort of woman who was quite popular among many supernatural circles on the West Coast. She had even made friends among some Kindred circles. More than her social standing, however, she was competent and reliable when given a role to play for her cause and had been responsible for the reorganization and modernizing of the current Hollow Ones’ movement.

But like most of the other Hollowers, she had an Achilles’ heel regarding her personal life. 

In the late nineties, she had a daughter (out of wedlock with a man who was revealed to be a spy) who she’d saddled with an equally pretentious title; Legeia the Dreadful. According to Nola, the girl had grown up to be ornery and self-destructive with the sole focus of harming her mother and her chantry however she could whenever possible. And a Halloween bash of Hollowers and other magi in their network was just too tempting an opportunity to pass up...

It had been a miracle that there were no casualties, though several had come close to getting to be the protagonist of their own tragic poems. In order to save face with their allies who had also been endangered by Legeia’s spiteful loose lips, the usually free-flowing Hollow Ones had been forced to crack down on their own freedoms.

He argued with the witch for twenty minutes, but there seemed to be no other way forward. He couldn’t send her to a more close by chantry of Hollowers, nor put her on a flight and then up in a hotel near Nola, nor even reason that he could possibly be more a threat to her than a protector considering he had just had SI hunters on his tail.

“Beckett, you’re the one who asked me for help. Yes, I know she’s one of my kind, don’t say it! But you called on me, so don’t act like I’m the one who needs to cater to you! I don’t, and yet I am. Much more than my chantry would like!” Nola scolded him with the harshness of a disobeyed mother. 

Though it made his cold blood boil, he could not find an avenue in which to argue back that didn’t make him sound like a mopping childe. So instead, he refrained and begrudgingly listened to the woman’s rant: “I convinced them to give you and your friend shelter for three fucking months when you claimed an entire vampire army was chasing you! Or have you conveniently forgotten that? I know in your mind you’re doing this to try and pay us back, but it isn’t going to be that easy! Nothing ever is. We both know that. So put on your big boy pants and do what needs to be done!”

“You are aware that I could easily go drain her dry right now out of spite for having been scolded like a child by someone 250 years younger than I,” he muttered dryly. “Or gift her to some of my brethren as a midnight snack, correct?”

Nola gave a small laugh. “I’m aware, Beckett. I’m aware. But you won’t. Because you cared about her enough to call on me for help to start with. If she wasn’t worth your time she’d already be vamp food. Don’t try and scare me with your drinking habits, wolf-boy.” There was a pause before, “We’ll be in touch. Try not to be an ass to her, please.” 

And then Nola hung up. There was a deep gouge in the trunk of the rowan tree he had sunk his claws into. The Gangrel would be picking wood scrap out from his nails for several nights.

When he sulkily returned to the cabin, he found Thora sitting alert and ready for him. Her bag was packed up tightly on the opposite side of the sofa and a small lantern lit up the room a shocking amount, making her hair shimmer like a candle against glass. She dared to smile at him. The blonde looked ready to go wherever he chose to take her, a bold and unwavering resolve in those icy eyes. 

Beckett sighed internally; Nola had been correct in her inferences concerning why he was making such an effort to aid her. She was lost and looking for a second chance. Why shouldn’t he help her, if it was in his power to?

“There has been a change of plans,” he told her simply.

Her smile wavered slightly but she remained in good spirits. “So _this_ is when I get murdered!”

“No...” he growled lowly, then briefly summarized the situation. Though he left out his desperation in his quarrel with Nola and the subsequent hanging out to dry he had received. It made no difference, however, for when he was finished explaining the girl was biting her lower lip with what the vampire had assumed was discomfort at the notion of having to travel with him all the way to Seattle. 

That assumption was quickly proven false when the blonde threw her head down into her knees and exploded into laughter. After about a solid two minutes, Thora attempted to lift her head and regain her composure but began to giggle again as soon as she looked directly at Beckett.

“Oh my god!” she sputtered, tears forming in her eyes. “They put you on fucking babysitting duty! And you're trying so hard to make it sound all secret and special but you look like a fucking - fucking _kicked dog_! Your face is just so...so fucking tight with disappointment it looks like you’re in pain!” 

She keeled onto one side, burying her face in the old upholstery. Beckett was torn between wanting to cuff her over the ear or just slink back out into the forest in shame. Worse still, he couldn’t actually do either action.

So he compromised with himself. When Thora sat up again she glanced over by the door where she had last seen him. When he laid one of his long pale hands with black claw-nails elongated beside her head on the back of the sofa, the Beast squirmed with satisfaction in his chest watching the runaway lurch back in shock.

“FUCK ME RUNNING!” she screeched. Celerity certainly was a lovely discipline to employ for getting trivial revenge.

Beckett merely smiled and drummed his nails on the threadbare fabric. “I am not fond of dog jokes, for the record.”

The shock left her expression and, to his surprise, was replaced with almost sheepishness, her cheeks turning pink even in the dim light. “Sorry...that was insensitive of me to say...” Thora muttered softly, raising her eyes back to him with an almost fearful look. Not out of fear of the Noddist, but out of fear of having hurt him with her words.

“Yes, it was,” he admitted. “But I think the look on your face was enough penance for the transgression.” He smirked at her and she began to smile again too. 

Thora excused herself to the restroom before they departed, leaving the Gangrel alone in the dimly lit main room. He paced while he waited and noticed after a few laps up and down the old wooden floor a scrap of white sticking out from under the sofa. He knelt down to pick up the stray papers, and what he found, while not necessarily shocking, surprised him. It seemed to be a recurring theme with his new companion... Closer inspection revealed that they were three torn out pages from a diary with notes in different colors of art pencil and alternating black and red ink. Some of the words had been erased and rewritten, others scribbled over to hide whatever they had originally said.

In the center of each page was a drawing or sometimes several drawings...of Beckett himself. 

They were all done black-gray pencil with the detail of red added to his eyes. Some had his brown trenchcoat colored in partially or his hair shaded in a deeper hue of black. The writings varied greatly; some were simple poems and others seemed to be personal notes on the drawing or writing piece. It was an interesting glimpse into this strange girl’s activities in Berkhamsted.

One particular page caught his attention. Beside a drawing of him looking over his shoulder was:

_“Who are you nightly?_

_Do you change, as does the moon?_

_I want to know you.”_

The haiku was circled in red pen and higher on the page was a far more melancholy piece:

_“He **never** sees you._

_He **does not care** about you. _

_He won’t hear you **cry** .” _

Beckett had noticed small indents on the page where the parchment was slightly crinkled as though it had been dampened and then dried. _Tears...she was crying when she wrote this…_ the vampire noted. 

Flipping the page over was one final writing, this time in prose and presumably from after the Society of Leopold had come into the picture:

“FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

I never wanted this to happen. I never wanted to get you hurt. All of this was a sick game in my head. You don’t deserve to die because of me and my angsty bullshit. Neither did they.

FUCK.”

When the door hinges began to creak, Beckett quickly shoved the pages into his coat pocket. He decided then he would put them into his own diary later when he wrote about this entire incident in detail. Part of him wanted to compliment Thora on her artistic skills but he refrained. She obviously hadn’t wanted him to see those since she’d torn them out and tried to hide them. Perhaps she’d forgotten about them?

Whatever the case, the Noddist found himself wondering what Thora thought of him now, after everything at Berkhamsted and their conversation last night as they made their way out into the forest. The Beast tried to reason that it was pointless or counterproductive to dwell on the analysis of Thora’s emotions when he was only troubling himself with any of this in order to repay a boon with an ally.

And yet...it remained on his mind for the rest of the night.

_Stalker or not, she risked her life to save you, a dead man walking. Surely there is something special in that fact?_

The first two nights continued on similarly to when they had first become acquainted in the cabin. Thora was obedient to him if a little mouthy at moments. But he supposed that was to be expected; she was a _teenager_ after all. Not to mention that his chosen way of travel - walking through woodlands and hitching a ride on passing trains - was not the easiest to acclimate to. 

She was not physically capable of jumping onto trains herself, so Beckett was forced to pick her up to carry her on and off the freights. It was not completely surprising, as he had already done so the night of her Awakening when taking her to the Quabbin reservoir. But repeating the action - this time with a fully awake kine - proved to be more challenging than raising her limp body over his head like before. She yelped and made a bit of a fuss the first time. But he supposed not everyone was used to the world-blurring effects of celerity. 

“What the hell was that faster-than-light Inuyasha carrying you just did?!?” Thora snarled when he set her down out of his arms. 

“A faster-than-light _what_ carrying?” Beckett inquired. “Also I am technically moving at the same rate as I regularly would, at least from my perspective. The world itself is moving slower. Though to an outsider looking in, it may appear to be the opposite.” 

She glared at him as she settled down against the rusted metal wall of the car. “Good to know…”

“You did not answer my question,” Beckett noted as he seated himself atop a wooden crate strapped to the floor. 

Thora raised her eyebrows. “Not an anime fan?”

“Excuse me?” 

She laughed. “Uh, never mind...probably would have made you mad anyway,” she blushed slightly. “Inadvertent dog-joke. _Totally_ inadvertent.” 

Beckett smiled at her with a gentle warning of his claws tapping against the wood. “Careful not to become so bold as to make them purposefully, my dear.”

“Noted.”

After that exchange, things were silent between them. Thora pulled out a notebook or journal and set about drawing, a favored activity of hers it seemed. Beckett did not mind silence, yet...he had been expecting a bit more conversation from his new traveling companion. Especially since she wasn’t accustomed to being in the presence of the undead, or at the very least, with them aware of her. 

“You are allowed to speak to me, to be clear,” Beckett said after an hour or two of radio silence. 

The girl looked up from her notebook, blinking in surprise. “Uh...okay.” They stared at each other for a few moments, the train rumbling on in the background before she added: “Is there something you wanna talk about or…?”

Beckett shrugged. “Well, I figured you might have a few questions to ask, considering your interest in me and my activities.”

Thora shifted slightly, blue eyes narrowing. “You _really_ want me to badger you with annoying questions about being a vampire?”

“Depends on how annoying the questions are,” he smirked, parting his lips and exposing his fangs in the dim light. “Though...I can always eat you if you become too bothersome.”

“Well, that really makes me want to chat with you…” the blonde said dryly. 

“I thought you would like the opportunity, at any rate,” he said with an unexpected edge of disappointment that he let slip out in his tone. Thora seemed to pick up on this, as she sat up from her slumped position slightly and leaned forward. 

The Beast roared at him letting a weakness shine through so easily. _Fool!_ it hissed. _You want her to pity you? A little lost mortal?_ He pushed it away as best he could and kept his eyes locked on the girl instead.

“Uh, do you want to play a question game or something?” she asked somewhat hesitantly.

Beckett smirked. “You want to play a game with someone who just threatened to eat you?”

“I mean,” the girl raised her shoulders and hands. “I’m already homeless, showing unhealthy behavior patterns like stalking, and committed a few homicides the other night...what do I really have to lose at this point?”

“A respectable stance,” the vampire replied and moved onto the floor, just across from the newly Awakened. It mirrored the position they had been in the night before in the cabin. “So then...Twenty Questions?”

“Sure, though you probably already asked me over twenty questions last night.” 

“Only nineteen, actually,” he corrected.

Thora gave him a sideways glance. “You...counted?”

“I have a good memory,” Beckett said simply. “But...I’ll let you ask the first nineteen questions, for fairness’ sake.”

The girl was silent for a few moments, biting her lip pondering a question to ask. “How old are you...er, is that like asking a woman her weight for vampires?”

“Depends on the vampire,” the Gangrel chuckled. “But I find it rather trivial in the grand scheme of things, so I don’t mind answering much; I have been on this earth for three-hundred-and-fifty-one years.”

Thora’s eyes widened as she spoke, curiosity twinkling like blue stars in her irises. “...how long have you been a vampire?”

“Going on three-hundred-and-fifteen,” he smirked. “And hopefully will continue on for a while yet. I will have to be more careful in small-town libraries if I wish to make it to four hundred, however.”

“Yeah, I can’t always be around to save you.” The blonde agreed with a nervous laugh.

The next eighteen questions - or well over fifty were asked if one chose to split hairs - passed hours until they were due to disembark the train. The two discussed everything from Beckett’s homeland to how he met Nola to whether vampires and mages were friends in ‘modern gothic novel world’, as the girl had so eloquently put it. It was refreshing somehow to explain the ways of the modern nights to another, as though it made the vampire feel more grounded in reality. 

It was so easy to slip into memories, good and bad while traveling alone...

Thora was less fussy about being ‘ _I_ _nuyasha carried_ ’ by Beckett getting off the train, though she did appear to be a bit dizzy afterward. He stopped her from falling over and her cheeks had burned red with embarrassment. He managed to hold his tongue from teasing her. As they walked along a snow-laden hiking trail past a half-frozen creek glowing like silver in the moonlight, it was his turn to ask a question. 

“Why did you run away?” he asked softly. 

He could have asked something far less personal - but it was something he had begun to wonder about during the train ride, and the Gangrel always had possessed a rather insatiable curiosity.

The girl stopped in her tracks when he finished his question. He turned back to her; she was looking over the icy stream to their left, gaze unreadable at that moment.

Beckett was about to apologize when she suddenly answered: “I didn’t have any reason to stay anymore. I had st-stayed for different people, trying to make it work there...but it never did work. Even as much as I loved them, it didn’t work. And now all the people I was trying for are gone. So it was like, “what’s the point?”...” Thora spoke with a stutter of emotion in her voice as frosty white breath passed her lips.

“What about your parents?” Beckett asked.

The blonde turned to him properly, eyes watering again. “That’s twenty-one questions, vampire.”

He smiled at her. “Who’s counting, now?” 

Thora giggled at that and started to walk forward again, passing the Gangrel without looking up at him. She began kicking at a mound of snow with her boots a few feet in front of him. “I love my parents - but...because I have to, not necessarily because I want to. The people I stayed for, they were the ones I chose to love…” She sighed heavily and turned back around to him. “Okay, now to be fair I get twenty-one. But first, we need to be at twenty...so, how did you become a vampire.”

Beckett huffed with amusement. “I enjoyed nighttime walks in the moonlight, and one night I was particularly unlucky.”

Thora blinked at him. “Wow...I just sound like a whiny bitch compared to you.”

“Is it a competition?”

“No...I guess not…but still, I’m sorry,” she muttered gently. 

As she spoke, Beckett felt a warmth inside him - not unlike what he had felt when he had touched her face back at the cabin. It startled him into silence as they continued on, only the winter night rustling around them as they went.

Beckett found a place to spend the day about an hour before dawn, in an abandoned barn not too far from a more populated area’s sprawling array of strip malls. Thora was a fairly resilient kine, but if she was going to continue traveling with him she would need to be properly equipped for his rugged style of living. So before going to rest within the earth, he gave her some money and told her to go into the shopping district to feed herself and purchase anything practical she might need. 

“Whoa! This is like five hundred dollars in twenties!” She exclaimed when he handed her the money. 

“Indeed it is. And I would appreciate it if you did not spend it on such commodities as pornography or candy, please,” the vampire replied smoothly. 

The kine’s icy blue eyes narrowed and she huffed, annoyed. “It’s not a healthy mindset to automatically assume the worst, most impulsive behavior from people, you know.”

“Oh, I’m sorry; is my _stalker_ lecturing me on bad psychological habits?” 

“Touchè, Beckett,” Thora grumbled under her breath as she sat with her legs dangling over the edge of the second-floor window of the barn to await the sunrise. “Touchè.”

He turned to leave, but then recalled something else. “I believe I still owe you one final question,” he said looking over his shoulder. “Twenty-one for twenty-one, as it were. If you had one you wanted to ask before I leave.”

Thora looked at him again, hugging one knee against her chest. The skyline behind her was beginning to become pale blue and peach-colored, signaling the arrival of the sun. She must have known she didn’t have long - but she managed to come up with a rather provocative question all the same:

“What was the last thing you remember saying as a human?”

“ _Wolves do not live in these woods…_ ” he responded with a slightly sinister smile. 

The girl shuddered slightly at his words. “I know it isn’t a contest to be the most edgy and dark one...but, you’re still winning. By like, a mile.”

Beckett laughed heartily. “I’ll take that medal. Though I’m not sure if it’s in good taste to say I’ll wear it proudly.”

“Better than tasting me…” Thora said as he withdrew before the sun made an appearance.

When he emerged from the earth that evening, he found her waiting in that very same location. Only now she had a bigger backpack with a sleeping bag tightly bound to the top. She was also wearing a new coat that still reeked of freshly cast plastic that prevailed over most mortal shopping establishments. She held out a stack of twenty-dollar bills about half as tall as the one he had given her. 

“Couldn’t find any hookers outside the Khol’s; sorry to disappoint your expectations of me.” she purred with a smile. 

Beckett chuckled. “Keep the rest. Nola will reimburse me.”

*** 

Halfway through the second night, Thora stupidly slipped on a patch of ice amongst the tree roots. The embarrassing blunder resulted in a long, but thankfully shallow, cut across the exposed skin at the top of her left ankle. She put a half-assed bandage on it and insisted she was fine, but the added limp resulted in even slower, more clumsy movements. 

She fell three more times, earning quite a few bruises along the way. Her vampire companion never laughed at her when she fell, though. He only sighed and helped her back on her feet. They were closer to other people tonight, so Beckett wore his sunglasses and leather gloves as they walked through the woods, under bridges, and along back roads.

Thora was glad, in a way. His nails did look pretty damn sharp...

They stopped to settle for the day much earlier than the night before as a result of her injury. They found shelter in an empty storage unit, which smelled a bit musty but wasn’t too bad of a place. At least it was out of the bitter wind that had made her lips horribly chapped.

As Beckett made sure the place was safe enough for Thora to stay in, she sat down with an exhausted huff and switched on her mini portable lantern, then set about checking her ankle. 

To her great displeasure, the bandage was soaked through with blood. “Well fuck…that’s not good!” she muttered aloud while flinching in pain as she pulled the sticky gauze off her flesh. It was slightly puffy and the coppery tang of blood filled the air. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have some vampire magic that’s the equivalent to a tetanus shot would you, Beckett?” 

She looked up and realized Beckett had been staring at her the entire time she had been checking her wound. His shades had slid down his nose halfway, exposing his red eyes that glowed like embers, unblinking. His jaw was tight and his fingers were twitching, a leathery rubbing sound echoing in the bare room. Realization sank into Thora’s gut like an anchor hitting the seafloor.

Beckett was reacting to the smell of her blood...and it seemed to be irritating, or perhaps... _exciting_ him.

 _He is a vampire, dumbass._ She thought to herself, feeling both a bit afraid and embarrassed for not thinking about it before. _He_ ** _drinks_** _blood. Of course he fucking can smell it and is gonna react!_

“I - sorry!” she sputtered out without thinking.

Beckett finally blinked and shook his head, seemingly snapping out of his predatory trance. He sighed and walked over to her, taking off the leather glove on his right hand and crouching down to her level on the floor. “Let me see,” he said briskly.

Almost instinctively, she retracted her leg from him and pressed her back against the wall, crossing her arms over her body protectively. Her heart pounded and she felt like her throat was full of sand as she stared up at Beckett.

It was the first time she could remember honestly feeling frightened of him since he had first appeared at the cabin. 

Beckett’s eyes narrowed in confusion for a moment, then understanding seemed to set in. He pulled his sharp-nailed hand away and sat back on the dusty floor, giving her space for a few moments. As they so often did, they stared at one another. Red up against blue. It made her feel nervous to look at him like this still, but not as much. 

“I’m not going to bite you,” he promised her softly after a minute. “Just let me see, please.” 

Slowly, never breaking her gaze from his, she outstretched her hurt leg again. Beckett swiftly ran the tip of the claw-like nail of his index finger across the whole length of the wound. He moved carefully without adding any pressure against her flesh, so it didn’t hurt. Even so, Thora couldn’t help but shiver at his touch. 

He was so cold...but not in a regular way. 

The vampire was like the icy glass of a window inside a warm house; the chill could be felt but never became overwhelming. 

When Beckett pulled his hand away, a dark red bead of blood had been gathered on the tip of his nail, which he brought to his mouth and licked gingerly. Thora held her breath and her mind raced with questions she had never thought she would ask herself; the most prominent among them being whether or not her blood tasted good…

The dark-haired man’s eyes shimmered when he tasted it - glowing like a wild animal’s. His nostrils flared and his jaw twitched. Fear sparked inside Thora again; was he going to attack her and drain her dry out of bloodlust? 

She exhaled with relief when Beckett finally broke his gaze from her to turn his head and spit the sample of her blood over in a corner. 

“There’s no tetanus or other worrying bacteria present as far as I can tell,” he explained as he stood back up, towering over her in the process. “Wash it as well as you can and let it dry in the open air. Cover it again before you sleep, but not too tightly. That will only encourage swelling.” 

“Oh-okay,” Thora said breathlessly. “Thank you…”

He turned and left her alone a while then, leaving the girl alone and a bit unnerved by the interaction. She did as the vampire had recommended, using some antibacterial mini wipes she had bought the day before and let it dry. Meanwhile she rolled out her new sleeping bag and ate some candy coated pretzels she had gotten in town. 

Beckett had said not to buy candy, but he had said nothing in regards to candy-coated items.

When she was done eating, she rebandaged her ankle and shimmied into the sleeping bag with her cotton blanket and Woola the plushie lamb. It was all fairly comfortable despite being in an unheated concrete cubicle. Thora stared at the plain white ceiling for a time, thinking about all that had happened since the library and the last two nights traveling with Beckett.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts, she didn’t even notice Beckett when he misted back inside the storage unit and reformed just a few feet from where she was laying. 

“Comfortable?” he asked softly.

“OH...shit!” Thora sputtered, jumping back in the fleece lined sleeping bag in surprise when the man spoke. “Make some noise next time or something so you don’t scare the fuck out of me!”

Beckett gave her one of his knowing smirks. “The idea behind making oneself mist is not to make any sound,” he explained smoothly.

“Yeah, well...don’t use that idea!” the blonde muttered, annoyed.

He chuckled and went on to discuss more practical matters: “There is a gas station not a mile south from here with a diner attached. You can eat there later. Use the hole in the chain length fence we came through around back, though. If you do get caught by a caretaker, just leave and wait at the diner. I’ll find you after dark…” With that, her only companion turned to leave again. It was still earlyish in the morning but Thora knew he probably had to go do his...vampire activities, before taking a dirt nap for the day. 

“Do you think about eating me?” she blurted out before common sense could win out and stop her. Thora had been mulling over the idea ever since the incident earlier with her injury. 

She flinched as soon as she said it, not daring to meet Beckett’s gaze afterwards. 

_Smooth fucking thing to ask,_ she scolded herself. _If you get eaten now, you brought it on yourself!_

Things were silent for a time before Thora worked up the nerve to look at the vampire. To her surprise...he looked rather distressed by her comment. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, his face twisted in something like embarrassment. 

“I would be lying to you if I said no,” he muttered at last. “...and I have no desire to lie to you, considering how open you have been with me these past few nights.” Beckett hesitated a moment, before sighing and said: “Yes, I have thought about it...but I will not hurt you, Thora. I have promised to protect you until you are in Nola’s care.”

Thora blinked at him, surprised. “So...I don’t need to be afraid of you is what you’re saying...even when you get weird blood horny eyes after licking my blood?”

Beckett gave an amused huff. “I never said you shouldn’t be afraid. I am a monster, after all…”

“Aren’t we all?” Thora replied evenly. After that, Beckett said goodnight to her and slipped under the roll top door to the storage unit as a cloudy white mass once more. Then Thora was alone again.

She suddenly became aware of how tired she actually was; her muscles ached from all the walking she had been doing, not to mention the slight stinging of her ankle whenever she shifted in the sleeping bag. Using a bundle made of her pullover sweater, she shut her eyes.

Despite what had happened for her to get to this place...and the uncertainty of where exactly she was headed...she was almost having...fun? 

Or at least it was fun compared to sitting around alone or almost being killed by Society of Leopold agents…

No matter what happened, tomorrow night she would see Beckett again. Her former stalking icon now turned vampire escort to Seattle...

She had learned more about him tonight but it still felt as if there were a mountain of questions left between them to ask. He had been responsive and honest with her so far - or at the very least as far as she could tell. But sometimes when she looked at him, like just now when he had seemed caught off guard by her off-the-cuff question, it seemed like there was something like guilt or regret hanging over his head.

Maybe she was reading too much into it...not that it was any of her business to start with. Or maybe she was projecting some of her own mental woes onto him - it wouldn’t be the first time.

Whatever it was and whatever the next night would bring, she knew she needed some rest before she faced it, so slowly she let her mind drift away and her body relaxed and soon Thora was asleep in the dark storage unit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so their journey has begun. I hope I didn't bore you guys with the lore explanation on the Hollow Ones, Penny Dreadful, and the like. I wanted to explain in case there are some newer beans to the concept of Mage: The Ascension. Also quick shoutout to NightingaleTrash who I borrowed the idea of our two protagonists playing 20 Questions to get to know each other from their lovely Beckett-centric fic, "Blood & Trust" that you can go read right here on A03!
> 
> What did you think of the chemistry between Thora and Beckett in this chapter as they grow more comfortable with each other? Please feel free to comment your praise and/or constructive critiques, I love to hear from you guys!
> 
> I can't promise when the next chapter will be, but I will promise you these things will be in it: our mystery POV and little Jazmine from chapter 1 will be back, Nola will make a much bigger appearance, and we'll get some insight in Katrina and Keller from Thora's past!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading! Please stay healthy in this crazy world and know you are loved <3


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